


one week

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coulson is not good at being patient, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Grant Ward casts a long shadow, Humor, Late Night Conversations, Making Out, PTSD, Skye being the best thing ever, Snacks & Snack Food, Stakeout, Unresolved Sexual Tension, a lot of silliness really, gratuitous but necessary Charade references, i'm just plagiarizing The X Files at this point, lol plot what, rebuilding SHIELD, talking just a lot of talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:44:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1723514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye, Coulson and a week of old-fashioned stakeouts. What can possibly go wrong? What can possibly go <i>right</i>?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. comfort food

**monday**

 

**10:03**

"I brought my iPod. And snacks."

"Very professional."

"You know me. Professional comes first."

"What kind of snacks?"

"It's a surprise."

 

**11:05**

Skye squirms in her seat. She opens the glove compartment and fishes the paper with the car's technical details out of it. It reminds her of her days of living from rental car to rental car, all the boring paperwork you had to do at each place. That was a lifetime ago (before the van) but the smell of strange vehicles always brings her back.

This is not a rental, though. This car belongs to the CIA, sort of. This is not a sentence the Skye who drove rentals across the country thought she'd ever contemplate. There's a lot of things that girl would have never contemplated about Skye's current situation. She looks over at Coulson. He's also eyeing the instruments with suspicion, wrapping his fingers around the wheel experimentally even though they are going to be parked for the next several hours.

 

**11:21**

"So this is what other, saner ex-SHIELD agents do? Join up the CIA and the FBI?" she asks. Coulson has mentioned some colleagues who have moved on to greener pastures (Shaw to the CIA, Blake to the FBI, the surviving Academy staff scattered) and she guesses it's these contacts who have brought this surveillance gig to Coulson's attention. She doesn't know. Coulson is not in sharing-mode these days.

"A lot of good people have washed up in government agencies," he says. Then, after a sharp beat: "Those who didn't want to go into the private sector."

The private sector, ugh, Skye thinks. She could never do that – even when she was simply a hacker she had a lot of offers to work for big companies (usually after she had already cracked their security systems) and never once had she felt tempted by it. Not even in the bad old days of living in her van and driving trying to find warmer towns for the winter and having to hustle her way into something decent to eat. The thought of going corporate never occurred to her. For a moment she thinks about Miles, and then she doesn't. She can't imagine Coulson joining that kind of machinery either – him being the government drone the files said he was Skye can believe. She can even see why he would take stupid decisions like trying to rebuild SHIELD exactly as it was. But he could never grovel in front of people like Tony Stark or defend private interests.

"We're going to do a good job," she says, to herself as much as to Coulson.

"This is just..."

"A gesture of goodwill? I heard you when you said that to the CIA. Didn't believe you the first time."

"What is wrong with helping another agency when they are out of their depth?" he asks.

And they were out of their depth. And to be fair, Skye kind of is, too. The kind of technology this guy is packing – she's not sure how to work around that. _Fitz_ is not sure how to work around that, which worrying. An old-fashioned steakout is a good start, she guesses.

"But you could still go to jail," she points out. In the midst of avoiding capture for their status as terrorists and bringing down Garrett's operation Coulson had somehow forgotten to mention he had reduced and shot at various high-ranking members of the military. He had also somehow forgotten these things tend to have repercussions and that Nick Fury might have an infinite supply of secret bases to give out to his agents but he isn't all-powerful.

There were always two options: stay underground or accept the responsibility and risk the possibility of retribution. Skye, despite having operated underground most of her life, didn't really like the first option. They are not vigilantes, she definitely doesn't want to be. She'd follow Coulson, but not anywhere.

He thought there might be a third option.

And here they are, sitting in a car for the long haul and seemingly doing other agencies' dirty work in an act of semi-public contrition. _This new incarnation of SHIELD is eager to collaborate with other organizations. Transparency is our watchword_ she had heard Coulson say into the phone at some point, hearing how he hated every syllable of his PR-oriented new responsibilities.

 

**0:59**

"How dangerous do you think this guy is?" Coulson asks.

It's not that Skye does have a lot of confidence on her abilities, but it's still nice to be asked her opinion as if she were more enlightened, more of an authority on the subject than him. Which she probably is, in this case.

Truth is, they don't know much about their target – apart from the fact that he is suspected of doing business with some very bad people, some old friends of old SHIELD.

"Well. The kind of technology he has – blocking our signal just like that. You have to have money and you have to have ill intentions. This is not about privacy, believe me." She looks out at the street. It's an ordinary upper class residential neighborhood. Nothing sinister about it, not at first sight. "Do you think the neighbors sometimes cross to that bit of the sidewalk and wonder why their cell phones never work in front of that house?"

"How's Fitz's solution to that coming along?" Coulson asks.

"We won't know until we've gathered enough data during the week."

He stares at her. "Something's bothering you."

Not something, she thinks, some _things_.

"I don't feel like escalating the tech war with the bad guys is something we should be doing again. Do you? It sounds like SHIELD, like old-SHIELD, like HYDRA-SHIELD."

She knows her tone is unwarrantedly sharp.

"Is there something you want to say to me, Skye?"

She just wants to have a fun night and get over the numbness her relationship with Coulson is suffering from these days. She _wants_ to have this conversation, but it's only Monday.

"No," she lies. And he doesn't believe her. "Sorry. I don't know what I'm talking about. We should stick to this plan."

They spend the next twenty minutes in silence.

 

**1:28**

Their sort of passive-aggressive silent impasse finishes, thank god, and now Skye is hungry.

"We could have ordered takeout," she suggests, deflated. "You might not know this but most places do deliver to parked vehicles."

"This is not a cop movie," he says. Meaning he's not going to smother their atmosphere with disgusting-smelling food. Pity, Skye thinks, because disgusting smelling food is her favorite. "I've brought soup."

"Ugh."

Coulson looks offended. Did he actually make the soup himself? Skye admits to being intrigued by that idea.

 

**1:45**

"Have you memorized the cheat sheet?" Coulson asks her, looking at a couple of men passing the car by.

He does this lately. It infuriates Skye. He gives her huge, way-beyond-her-rank responsibilities and then he acts like she might fail at the tiniest, most ordinary tasks.

"All bad guys," she recites, showing him the faces in the file. "Money, money, money, muscle, muscle, tech, oh more money, ex-HYDRA, ex-HYDRA, tech, and this dude riding HYDRA's coattails."

Coulson lets out a noise of profound frutration. Skye almost smiles like that – at least he's reacting.

"Grovelling at the feet of the mighty government not as fun as you imagined?" She says _mighty government_ like she's still in the Rising Tide.

"Maybe I should have just let Talbot take me to prison."

"You can still do that. I would come visit you," she teases him.

"Bring me cake with a file hidden inside?"

"Yeah, except by the time I finished baking the thing May would have already broken you out of there, maimed a couple dozen of guards."

"Probably."

"Also I don't know how to bake a cake." 

 

**1:59**

Skye checks the camera and equipment once more while Coulson watches her without a word. He had asked if she was any good with this stuff before they started, and Skye had simply rolled her eyes, greatly offended. She was the one who had been running surveillance on Centipede ages before SHIELD even thought of getting in the way, and she was doing it manually mostly. Of course she's awesome with a camera.

She sighs, taking a couple of shots of the building to check the settings once more.

She knows things aren't particularly cool between them, her and Coulson, and this stakeout is either going to fix that or aggravate it.

She also knows Coulson probably has no idea things are not cool between them. It's all on her, apparently.

Not even two months before – when they were fighting Ward and Garrett and practically living in a motel – it had felt like they were so close, not just team-close but close-close. Whatever that meant, Skye didn't really have time to examine all that, what with Garrett trying to kill them and the thing with Fitz and everything after.

But once Coulson accepted his role as Director and once they settled in their new home it's like that closeness was gone. Not to revisit old prejudices but he is acting like a robot version these days. Except this time it seems like he's stuck in that position for good. Plus he looks so freaking tired all the time.

 

**2:14**

There's a man in a green tracksuit walking his dog, just across from where they are parked, this late at night. Skye watches as the dog circles a tree and paws at it experimentally, its owner patiently following him close so it doesn't tangle the leash all around the tree – it's almost comical.

Skye is not unused to being out in the street so late. One could say she knows the landscape quite intimately (she is more familiar with the noises of the night-street than the views, what with being locked inside her van most of the time). She is not used to having company, though. Something about being here together with Coulson at this hour she finds almost unnerving.

"Why did you pick the night shift?" she asks her. "For yourself, I mean. You're the boss. You didn't have to do that."

"I picked it _because_ I'm the boss. It's an old tactic."

"Yes, it is, but I think we're all past that stuff. I don't think you need to prove yourself to your team at this point. Stop reading _How to Be a Good SHIELD Director_ self-help manuals."

"It's a nice thing to do for the subordinates, I'm sorry you are stuck with it too, but you picked the teams."

Yes, I did, Skye thinks, feeling a bit guilty because pairing herself with Coulson wasn't an entirely mission-oriented move. Nobody in the team thought anything of it, though, least of all Coulson.

"Why did you set up the teams like this?" he asks her.

"Oh, you want to know my process?"

"Yes."

"Because you didn't ask before... I thought you were okay with the teams..."

"No, I'm okay. I trust your instincts. I'm just curious."

Skye sits up, straightening her posture in the seat she's beginning to find really uncomfortable.

"Well, we have three action people, you and Trip and May, and three more let's say _useless_ agents in the rooster so it had to be badass-useless duos all the way, in case anything happens," she explains to him. "And I wanted to put Fitz and May together because they haven't spent a lot of time with each other and they should learn how to be partners. Plus May is the perfect companion if Fitz feels like getting self-pitying about his recovery, I kind of want May to talk to him about that. And Trip and Simmons work really well together so I didn't have to worry about them, this is a mission after all – one experiment like Fitz and May is enough."

"Already thinking like a real leader," Coulson says.

He shouldn't sound so surprised considering he was the one who suggested Skye should be the tactician on this mission in the first place. There's a warmth to his voice that hasn't been there in a long time, though.

"Well, Director, you know I'm aiming for your job," she says, testing the waters. "I'm joking. But I'm not."

He knows this. She hasn't explicitly said it, they haven't had a conversation – not with how weird he's being since he became _Director Coulson_. She's not aiming that high, it's just a joke, maybe. But she did tell him she didn't want to spend the rest of her days being comms girl. She has not so subtly been helping herself to more and more responsibilities lately. Being ambitious doesn't come naturally to her, and she still doesn't want to be as presumptuous as to consider herself a leader, not like him anyway. But Skye has learned to do a lot of things that don't come naturally for her in the past year.

"I know," he says, sounding playful. "Should I worry about a possible coup d'etat?"

"I don't know," she replies. "Seems like a lot of work when I could just wait around until you retire. That should be soon. You're like, what, sixty?"

"I see, very funny, very funny," he says, rolling his eyes. "You know, when I accepted the position of director I thought it would come with a lot more respect from my subordinates."

" _Respect_? You were being naive."

There's a beat. This is how it should be, Skye thinks: teasing him, being teased by him, something easy and companionable. This is what she was expecting from the stakeout in the first place, that's how it happens in the movies. Maybe it's working. Maybe she wasn't wrong and this is what they needed. She can't remember being alone with him a lot these past couple of months.

"That leaves _us_ ," Coulson points out.

"What?"

"When you picked the teams. Why did you pair us together?" He sounds careful when he asks that. "Was it because we work well together or because we don't? Or were we just the leftovers of your other choices?"

Skye shrugs. "A combination of the three? We obviously work well together, I don't have to tell you that. I think. I hope, whatever. But we haven't been in many missions together, not on the field. I'm ready to take this kind of work more seriously now, with all the training I've been doing with May. I guess it's a good opportunity for me to show you that you can count on me on the field."

He says nothing, just stares back at her very seriously, very intently. He's such a weird one, Skye thinks. A normal, supportive boss would tell her he knows he can count of her on the field or some platitude like that – which, by the way, she knows he already does, that was not the point. Instead of that Coulson nods, knowing how important it is for Skye to prove herself to herself. She likes this version of support better. Okay, so she's a weird one, too.

"There could be a simpler explanation, though," she says, trying to reel him in.

"What would that be?"

"I could have just paired us up for this mission out of pure selfishness, because I wanted to work with the coolest one in the team."

There's a half formed chuckle of disbelief at the back of his throat. Skye grins.

 

**3:07**

It's not a cold night and this car –unlike her stupid, beloved van– doesn't have its heater busted but it's still nice to hold the warm cup in her hands.

She takes one sip of it.

"Okay, scratch my previous comment, or noise of disapproval. This soup is pretty great."

She looks at him sideways, smiling, trying to figure something out, mostly.

"Mmm," Coulson lets out, ambiguously, looking away.

 

**3:35**

"What the hell is that?"

"Snacks." She holds out the colorful bag, proud.

Coulson blinks.

"No."

"Yeah. Froot Loops Marshmallow. They're awesome."

"Those are not – Skye, you can't eat cereals at three in the morning."

"Last time I checked you were my boss not my dietist. Come on, I'm big on sharing, just ask me."

"I'm not going to put that inside me," he tells her.

"I have more stuff." She tosses him her snack pack. Okay, so she was a bit excited about the whole stakeout-with-Coulson deal.

"Do you have anything that's not all toxic starch?"

"Did Trip got to you? Do you have anything against _joy_?"

He finishes rummaging through her stuff, finding everything inadequate. He hands it back without taking one bite.

"I need to keep my body healthy," he says. "I am, after all, _like sixty_."

"Very funny," Skye snorts. She can't believe he took that comment even semi-seriously. Has the man never heard about self-preservation? "Plus, don't lie, sir, I know you have a sweet tooth."

He makes a noncommittal noise that sound a lot like a defeated groan and Skye knows she's got him there.

"Do you always eat like this? I'm amazed you're not dead."

"Of course I don't _always_ eat like this," she replies. She used to, but Coulson doesn't need to know that. She eats a lot better since she joined SHIELD. And well, now she can afford to. "This is a special occasion. But I like it. It's indulgent."

"Yes! It is."

"Let me finish," she tells him. "I like it _because_ it's indulgent. Growing up the nuns didn't let us eat anything with sugar, they must have thought there was devil in Skittles or something. It was kind of a big event when we manage to smuggle some. We used to eat this kind of cereal after lights-out, it was like actual candy to us, Apple Jacks under the covers. It was very exciting. It was fun."

Coulson tilts his head, looking at her with skepticism. Skye knows he hasn't heard many of this type of story from her.

"What? I do have good memories of the orphanage, I didn't grow up in a Dickens novel," she says. "It wasn't the greatest but it was a lot better than what came after. It was a lot better than being alone."

 

**4:01**

"I didn't remember how boring stakeouts were before technology made human involvement superfluous," Coulson comments.

"Done this a lot?" she asks.

"Not for a long, long time, I can tell you that."

He says it in a way that leaves no room for further questioning – a pity, because Skye wouldn't mind listening to some stories from way back. She talked about the orphanage, it's only fair. At the end of the day she realizes how little she knows about him. The details, she means. She _knows him_. In a way she knows him better than she's known anyone in her life – but the details about his life, she doesn't have many of those. She knows more about his past from reading his psych evaluation than from anything he's actually told her.

 

**4:11**

Coulson is so, so right.

This is dull.

Stakeouts in movies never look that dull.

Actually they often look dull but in that exciting, movie-like sort of dull, which make it seem like being bored in a stakeout is actually a lot of fun and a rite of passage in your relationship with your partner.

"What time is it?" she asks him.

"You asked that five minutes ago."

"Am I annoying you?"

"And you have a watch."

"I know that, but I enjoy annoying you."

She taps her nails against the dashboard.

"We have six more nights of this," Coulson warns her, looking at her fingers.

"Or not, if we are lucky and we get the money shot before that." She stops fidgeting, though. "I have a confession to make. I'm not a very good at just waiting. I normally need things to happen _right now_."

"Perfect companion for a stakeout then."

"Hey, you are not a very patient person either, so, don't pretend," she tells him, gesturing at his tense posture. "You put a lot of effort in making it seem like you are patient but you're really not."

He smirks. "I don't put that much effort, actually."

No, he doesn't. Skye smiles back at him. The whiff of boredom is gone for the moment.

"Do you still have any of those sugary monstruosities?" he asks suddenly.

Skye tries not to take offense. The snacks she brought are, actually and now that she thinks about it, quite disgusting. "Even if you are mocking me for it, yes I do, and yes, I will share."

She fishes the half-empty bag from her backpack. Coulson eyes it a moment before taking it from her hands, careful like it was somehow radioactive.

"Thanks," he says. "I like sweet things."

He's being charming. He hasn't been charming in some time. Skye was beginning to wonder if she had made it up, the whole thing about Coulson being charming.

It feels a bit like before – like before they defeated Garrett, like before the new base, before _Director Coulson_.

 

**4:40**

She stirs, fingers curled around the camera.

"Coulson. Is someone walking to the door? Is that a vehicle at the entrance?"

"That's a garbage truck, Skye."

His smile lights up his face for a moment, it's nice even though she is the object of his amusement.

"Oh. Hey, hey, don't laugh at me, it's my first official stakeout."

 

**5:18.**

She rests her head on the back of the seat. She's way past the time when she fears she might fall asleep. It's too late for that. She's worn out but she has this second wave of energy that always comes when she stays up all night, always around four or five in the morning. She is looking at Coulson who is looking at the street again. He doesn't look in danger of falling asleep either. Skye stares at him, not really bothering to hide the curiosity in her glance.

"Are you going to wear a suit every night?" she asks.

Coulson doesn't turn to meet her eyes, but she knows he has noticed her staring.

"What is wrong with it?"

She shrugs. "Nothing. I just think it can't be very comfortable for you."

 

**5:50**

"Trip and Simmons must be on their way here," he says, looking around the front seats to see if they have forgotten to pack any of the stuff. They are going to use this same car, while May and Fitz will make a change to avoid suspicions.

Skye hasn't really stopped staring.

"Did you make the soup?" she asks.

"What?"

Skye wants to ask him a lot of things, right now, actually. She wants to ask, mainly if he really wants to be Director of SHIELD, if he really wants SHIELD to exist again; she wants to ask why he isn't sleeping lately and why he has been avoiding talking to her for the last couple of months – actually talking to her, like they'd done tonight. 

She wants to ask if he is okay.

But she doesn't. Not now.

"The soup you brought. Did you actually make it?"

He looks confused for a moment. Then sort of bashful, if that's even possible in Coulson. Apparently it is and it's a strange, great thing to witness.

"We had the ingredients at the base. Why should we have to buy–?"

"This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard," Skye says, eyes very wide.

"That I can make soup."

"Yeah."

He slides his fingers along the collar of his shirt instinctively, making sure the fabric is not wrinkled. "You have very humble expectations about _amazing_."

"It was really good," she says. "Honestly."

He smiles warmly. "You told me."

"Well, I didn't know you had made it then. So, bonus _really good_."

 

 

**6:15**

Trip and Simmons seemed _really_ happy about having to wake up so early for the change of guard. Skye can't say it wasn't funny, their little sleepy faces, all grumpy and matching each other. Skye is not completely heartless - she gave them whatever was left of her snacks for them to enjoy.

"Hey, we've survived the night," she says as they walk back to their official New SHIELD-issued vehicle parked at a safe distance of their target, leaving the unassuming "rental" and the other team members behind.

"We have," Coulson agrees, hands buried in his pockets.

"That's good. For the team, I mean. We _can_ work well together. That's good."

He nods, looking ahead.

Skye studies his profile, almost surreal against the early morning light. Everything sharp and orange-ish. His suit looks like he has indeed spent eight hours stuck in a car. He doesn't look that tired, not more than he does every day, anyway. His eyes look a bit softer than usual but that's it. Maybe it's his training but he seems like he could have been keeping at it for a while longer. Skye feels a lot more tired than he looks but not tired enough that she couldn't spend a while longer with him.

"Hey, we should grab breakfast," she says, getting caught up in the scene. "There's a very cool-looking diner three blocks from here."

"We should get back to the base, get some rest."

"Of course, you're right."

Her face falls a bit. She's not sure what she was hoping for here. Sure, sharing an old-fashioned breakfast with Coulson at the end of a long night spent in each other's company is an image Skye genuinely likes. Spending more time with him is always a good idea in her book, it's quite simple – she doesn't mean it in a clingy way, more in the chill way of Coulson, even robot!Coulson, being the person she doesn't mind spending eight hours trapped in a car with, and that means something, she knows it does.

She tries not to be too disappointed.

"I guess same time same place tomorrow," she tells him later when they say goodnight (well, the equivalent); when they are in headquarters and she goes back to her room while Coulson disappears into his office for a couple of hours of _more work_ , in no hurry to get some rest.

Skye wonders if he has enjoyed this even just a bit.

Well, they have six more nights to work it out.


	2. late night music

**tuesday**

**10:30**

"So what kind of music do you like?"

"Tom Petty."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Mostly."

"Mostly kidding or mostly Tom Petty? Because that's the difference between acceptable and unacceptable."

 

**11:08**

This time they park on the other side of the street. Same visibility, different angle.

May had looked intensely pissed off when the end of the shift came (oh, Skye knows that look); Coulson has told Skye that if there is a thing which May hates more than undercover that's surveillance. Skye wonders if May is the person Coulson used to go on stakeouts with; she had imagined that having her as S.O. would secure a decent amount of juiciy stories from back when she and Coulson were together in Ops but nope, no such thing. She doesn't know which one is less of the sharing type, May or Coulson. Skye has learned more details from when she had to dig into their files.

As for Fitz, on the other hand he looked a lot more cheerful than May – Skye knows Fitz and this probably means he has made some progress about whatever the hell the suspect is using to block their communications. And, well, in general Fitz looks a lot more cheerful these days.

 

**11:24**

It's only her second day doing this but Skye can see how easy it is to fall into a rhythm, a habit; she checks and re-checks the equipment, she starts logging the details of tonight's mission in their file, she shifts in her seat for about ten minutes until she finds the most comfortable position – which will somehow devolve into the _least uncomfortable_ position at some time during the night.

Coulson, on the other hand, has a simpler ritual: Skye watches him slide two fingers under the collar of his shirt, a gesture that somehow loosens his tie a bit. She guesses he's going to wear his Mr SHIELD Director suit every night.

"Coffee?" she offers him the thermos.

"That's a lot of coffee," Coulson points out, seeing the size of the container.

"This time I'm not going to let exhaustion be the boss of me," she tells him. He still has a skeptical expression. "If you are worrried about bathroom breaks don't be, there's an all-night deli round the corner. I'm historically very good at convincing people the _employee's only_ rule doesn't apply to me."

That makes him smile a bit.

 

**0:06**

"This bad guy? He's a _bad guy_. Look who he's been meeting with."

He takes the report from her hands. Dates, places, even photographs.

"I recognize this man," Coulson says. "He's in the Index."

_Was_ in the Index, Skye amends mentally. The Index is kind of obsolete at this point. They still have it, but they don't have the manpower to update it, and with everyone leaving SHIELD most of the gifted have been left without the supervision of any handler. Skye doesn't know how to feel about that; she never really thought the Index was 100% the best, but at the time she had understood it might have been the only possible option. Not every indexed person was dangerous – in fact most of them were just regular people trying to get on with their regular lives (only with superpowers). Without something like SHIELD out there these people have no one to go to if they get in trouble. But also, in the same way, now they don't have anyone controlling their every move.

Skye has never really known what to think of SHIELD's handler system; she let her doubts go unacknowledged because she believed SHIELD was trying to protect these people, and this was the closest thing to a solution they had come up with it. Of course, knowing HYDRA had been pulling the strings the whole time makes Skye re-think a lot of stuff.

"Why is this guy meeting with people on the Index?" 

"Where did you get this?" Coulson asks in turn, about the report and really, is that all he has to contribute?

"The CIA aren't the only ones keeping tabs. Though I'm not surprised they didn't tell us."

He looks at her, searching Skye's face for something.

"You're hacking the NSA. Maybe this is not the best time for us to be hacking the NSA," Coulson says.

"You realize this is what I do, right?"

"This is a simple operation, Skye. They don't expect from us anything other than just waste our time for a week – just to prove they can make us do it. They don't expect us to show them up."

"Well, they hired the wrong hacker, if they didn't expect me to show them up."

"Skye, help me here," he says and okay, it does sound pleading, which makes Skye feel like crap. "You know a lot of people are waiting for an excuse to mop the floor with us."

He's not saying anything she hasn't contemplated already.

"Coulson, you know I'd support you in any decision, that's like, out of the question. And of course I know the world is waiting for you to mess it up like SHIELD did before. But that's no reason to _not help people_. What if he's trying to exploit this person? Without SHIELD on the map the Index can be a playing ground for these characters."

He says nothing. Skye doesn't enjoy that face. It normally means he thinks she's right, probably, but not in a nice way.

"Look, don't get me wrong," she says, softer now, "it was smart of you to let the CIA think we could be their loyal dogs. But they don't care about this stuff. This is the kind of stuff we care about."

"Yes, it is," Coulson agrees, sharply. "I'm just trying to make sure we can afford the luxury of caring about something, Skye."

She says nothing. She doesn't enjoy pulling this face. A part of her knows he's right, probably.

 

**1:07**

They can't turn on the radio because communications are down this side of the street anyway, but Skye has loaded a bunch shows from different news outlets to listen to while they keep an eye on the house. She loaded BBC World service and NPR and that kind of stuff. She felt tempted to include some Rising Tide podcasts, just to annoy Coulson but –and she is not being arrogant here– the quality of their shows had dropped since Skye stopped recording hers.

The radio is a sort of an ideal solution; they are entertained but they don't have to talk to each other.

 

**1:50**

"We seem to be at each other's throats more often than not these days," Coulson says, after Skye knows not how many minutes of silence.

She turns to him, trying to give him a conciliatory smile. She doesn't like being at odds with him. They're partners.

"You noticed, uh?"

He nods. Skye feels a bit better for it. A bit less alone. At least he knows there's something off. Skye feels a tension these days whenever she is around Coulson – and Coulson doesn't seem like he wants to be around her that much. 

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have –" she starts. Coulson doesn't let her finish.

"Skye." He shakes his head. "I don't want to be surrounded by people who agree with me all the time."

"Well, then you've picked the right girl for the job," she jokes.

Something around his eyes softens. His mouth quirks up into a strange little smile – one of those that sometimes makes Skye think she's not crazy after all.

" _I know_."

 

**2:16**

"I need to go get on comms with the team for a moment," he tells her. She knows he is kind of lying. He will phone the base, but he will also phone the people who proposed the mission.

"Okay."

She knows that means he'll have to walk a block until the satellite phone works again. That means he'll have to leave her alone for a bit.

"Do you have your gun?" he asks.

Skye clutches her bag, feeling for the ICER inside, nodding.

"Are you comfortable with having your gun?" Coulson asks, a knowing expression on his face.

"You should see me on the shooting range." He should, she thinks. It's not May's strict physical menu what is making her a better agent, it's also Trip's help with firearms. Unlike her incapacity to keep up with May, she's kind of proud of the shooting thing.

Coulson nods. "I'll be back in five minutes."

 

**2:21**

She admits it. Five minutes seem a lot longer at this hour. After two minutes she starts eyeing every piece of urban furniture with suspicion – that trash bin surely looks like it could hide a dangerous assassion behind it. And what about those bushes blocking most of the view of the house? There could be sharpshooters there, aiming right at the car.

There's a knock on the glass by her side.

"Jesus, Coulson, don't do _that_ ," she says as she rolls down the window.

He gestures. "Give me the camera. I want to get closer to the house and take a couple of pictures."

She gives him an _Are you kidding me?_ look – so on one hand he has admitted to her this is just an excuse of a job, but on the other hand he's going to go beyond what's required of him to do it when mere hours before he had almost chewed her head off for suggesting exactly that.

"Are you sure? I know the CIA file says he's not dangerous but maybe you shouldn't risk exposing yourself, because, you know, the CIA file is full of crap."

"I'm sure," he says, still holding out his hand.

"You know how to use this?" she asks, rather vindictively, when she hands him the camera. Coulson just arches an eyebrow.

She watches as he crosses the street and takes a couple of shots.

That streetlightright by his side is looking definitely evil.

 

**3:00**

She looks at the time. She feels kind of trapped in the car right now. 

It's not the lack of sleep, she's okay. It's not the company, either, although, well, it's kind of a mixed bag at the moment.

It's probably the lack of room. She itches to go for a walk, but she doesn't want to go outside alone. 

Coulson, too, must be feeling a bit of that. He takes off his jacket as if that could make the car feel a bit less restrictive.

She flexes her arms above the dashboard. For a moment she forgets about the bruise on her elbow.

"Ouch," she rolls up her sleeve, touches her fingers to the tender spot still showing the traces of Melinda May's dedication to teach Skye how to defend herself. The skin is a dark wine tone.

"How did you get that?" Coulson asks.

"Training." She rolls her eyes. "I thought it would get better but, I'm so freaking sore all the time."

"May is not going easy on you, uh?" he asks, fondly.

She sighs. She hit the mat, hard, today. She can still feel the ringing in her bones when her elbow made contact with the floor. May is not the most nurturing of people (she is careful, of course, Skye knows that) and even she had to hold Skye's arm between her hands for a moment to make sure there was no permanent damage. Skye is not regretting it, asking May to be her supervisor, but she still feels hugely inadequate trying to live up to the woman's standards.

"I can't believe I'm having more trouble getting through training than when my S.O. was Mr Fourth Reich."

Coulson freezes a bit. She knows mentioning Ward is kind of a shaky ground for the team even now. But it's not like they can avoid the subject forever and of course for Skye the only way to work around the fear is by making a joke out of it. Coulson shifts on his seat, turning to face her. His expression is boss-like but not like it has been lately, it's the good, warm version Skye has known since the first time she walked into the Bus.

"We never had a chance to talk about what happened with Ward," he says. "Not properly."

Not with actual words, you mean, Skye thinks. It's been almost two months, Ward is in prison, she's is safe. It's as she said, he doesn't scare her. What's the use in talking about the fact that she sometimes has nightmares about what would happen if he ever gets out of imprisonment? About how some of the things he said to her still haunt her?

"It's okay. I'm okay." She looks down for a moment. "Have you talked to May about it? At least I wasn't..." She sees his gesture of surprise. "Oh, you didn't know."

"I didn't know you knew," he explains.

"So you do know, well, good, because I imagined you knew, I mean, you had to."

He sits back, massaging the bridge of his nose. Skye can't believe no one has seriously told him how tired he looks.

"I tried talking to May about it," he admits sadly. "She wouldn't."

"She actually talked to me," Skye says. She's a bit afraid Coulson might think she's stepping on some territory he considers to be his, talking about May about something so huge – but he actually looks relieved to hear that. "Well, a bit. I think. After that – I guess kicking Ward's ass was enough for her. That makes sense. Doesn't it? But I am not like that. I don't get catharsis, things just... take root in me."

This is not something she even wants to admit to herself, let alone another human being, let alone _Coulson_ , the way things fester inside her; she likes to pretend it's enough to swallow stuff and push it down until she's sure it'll never resurface. And most of her life it has been enough, and the alternative has never been of any use to her.

"If it's any consolation we are not alone in this situation," Coulson says, a bit flatly, like he knows there's nothing to say, really, for her, for himself, the wound a bit too deep and a bit too recent. "Most SHIELD agents suddenly woke up to discover friends and teammates had been lying to them for years."

"Makes you wish SHIELD hadn't collapsed if only for the free theraphy sessions," she says. She never got to enjoy the mundane benefits of being a proper agent – she was that for like a day and a half, anyway. "You had those, right?"

"We did. I personally clocked a lot of hours after Tahiti."

Skye moves against the side of the car and presses her cheek against the window. She lets silence fall for a moment or two or even longer, aware that Coulson is looking at her, not waiting for anything, not expecting her to say something else, just looking. She's aware his eyes never leave her face.

"You know the movie _Charade_?" she asks after a while, not looking at him.

The non-sequitur seems to give him pause, confuse him. "The movie – the Cary Grant movie?"

"Yeah, the Audrey Hepburn movie," she points out.

"I know it."

She turns. She lifts her legs, crossing her arms over her knees. Her feet are on the seat, which she knows is rude, but it's the CIA's car not the team's so she doesn't really care. Coulson throws an ambiguous glance at her frame but says nothing.

"Watched it a long time ago but... Remember that bit in the movie where they talk about a tribe where liars had black feet and people who told the truth had white feet and that's how you could tell liars from honest people?" Coulson nods. "I wish real life could be that easy. I wish lying scumbags were legally contracted to wear a t-shirt saying _I'm a lying scumbag_. Or at least a t-shirt saying _I'm HYDRA_ , that would help."

"I'm not sure how that policy could be enforced but, sure."

"Of course if that had been the case you would have never let me set foot in the Bus, I would have been wearing one of those t-shirt," Skye says. "But at least it would have spared you from the whole Ward debacle."

She knows she should have talked about this a long time ago. She knows the sense of betrayal she feels is nothing compared to what Coulson and May must have felt, in a way she doesn't feel qualified to get broody about it. But HYDRA happened, and Ward happened, and Fitz's injuries happened, and then the whole deal with Coulson becoming Director happened and Skye is having trouble accessing her reserves of trust these days, even for the person sitting in this car with her right now.

Coulson shifts in his seat, sliding towards the edge, so he can get closer to her.

"Skye... I knew you were lying about something when I first met you and I let you set foot in the Bus anyway."

"What I'm saying is... You can never know another person, can you? Not really. You think you do but..."

She realizes she's not talking about Ward anymore.

Coulson looks ahead, a serious expression on his face. He keeps quiet.

"What are you thinking, Director?" she asks.

He looks uncomfortable. Skye knows it – it's guilt, or at least responsibility.

"I'm thinking you took a harder hit than I thought," he says, "and I'm sorry for not realizing."

"It's okay. I'm not – I'm okay, really."

"You've said that," he tells her. "But if you were asking me about it before, I disagree with you. I believe you can know people. Maybe you can only know them for a moment but... Does that matter? It's enough."

His voice is the strangest she's ever heard from him. His eyes narrowing, his expression going soft. It's not worry for her anymore, it's something else.

"Are you falling asleep?" Skye asks, purposedly ruining whatever mood they had walked themselves into.

"No."

"You're being quite intense."

" _Intense_?"

"Stakeouts really _are_ like in the movies."

That startles a smile out of him. "Okay. What I meant is, we might not have SHIELD therapists on payroll anymore and I won't presume to know what you need, Skye, but you can always talk to me and to the rest of the team."

"I know, sir. That why I was talking. Like, right now."

"Does it help?"

"I don't know," she replies. "Does it?"

The side of his mouth curls upwards – more than a smile but not quite a smirk.

"Ask me again tomorrow."

 

**3:57**

"I was being serious before."

"About what?"

"When I asked you what kind of music you liked?"

"This feels like the psychological questionnaire you had to answer whenever you moved up a Level."

"Well, you made Director so... maybe you need a test." He gives her a look – it's not a hard one, but it's not one that implies he is going to answer that question either. "Okay, okay, I was just trying to kill some time."

"Mmm."

"I bet you like jazz, though," she says. "That suits you. I bet you like Glenn Miller and..." A beat. "Nope, Glenn Miller is all I've got."

 

**4:28**

She's kind of lost in the moment. She's not tired, not really. She's watching, somehow waiting for the first moment of dawn, and then she will wait for that weird brief time when there's already enough sun beyond the horizon but the streetlights are still on and it's real light against fake light and it's kind of beautiful, Skye really likes that bit, always has.

She's so distracted by it that she almost misses Coulson's voice. He's saying something, but she realizes too late. She doesn't hear the first part of his line.

"...girl bands"

"What?" she turns to him.

"When you asked me what music I liked."

"Tom Petty."

He smiles, but it's a kind of unusual, cheerless smile.

"My mother liked all-girls bands. Motown, that kind of..."

She freezes at the word _mother_. Coulson gives her a kind of sympathetic shrug when he sees that. 

"Coulson?"

"Martha and the Vandellas, I remember that one, I remember doing my homework while that blasted through the whole house."

She is about to ask him if he is all right, she's about to call May and tell her it's an emergency and something has gone terribly wrong because under what circumstances would Coulson open up about his past like this, to Skye.

Then she thinks maybe it's the situation, being here so late, feeling like the rest of the world is lifeless and absent. Maybe he's just too tired. And this is what she wanted, after all, wasn't it. To have long, meaningful conversations with Coulson late at night. This has been the fantasy since she designed the mission and assigned the teams. And now she feels horrible for it, because this is not something she gets to _own_ , this is Coulson's life and Coulson's pain.

Skye tries to lighten the mood a bit without making it seem like she's not paying attention. She's paying attention.

"Forgot to load Motown's greatest hits in my iPod," she says, as sweetly as she knows how. "I will bring on the full Marvin Gaye tomorrow."

"It's okay. It was just... that's my reply. To your question," he says, sounding contrived, like he regrets saying anything but now he knows he can't take it back. "My mother liked that and I guess that's how I got the taste for the stuff."

"Were you two close?" What on earth possesses Skye to ask that question is beyond her.

"Had to be," Coulson replies, simple as that. "There was no one else. There never has been."

"You don't have any cousins or anything?" His file didn't mention any more immediate family.

He shakes his head. "I'm an only child, my parents were both only children."

You're an orphan, Skye thinks, painfully, and hates herself for ever starting this conversation.

"I'm sorry, it's personal, I know you –" _I know you don't do personal_.

"That's the deal. When we signed up for SHIELD it used to be that you agreed to leave _personal_ behind, in a way. For many it was one of the incentives."

Skye thinks about it. She doesn't like that. Her job is personal – it has to be, or else what the hell is she here for. She doesn't like the idea of Coulson relinquinshing a part of what he is for the cause, that's getting it all backwards. She doesn't like _the deal_ , she's never going to take it.

"And the new SHIELD is going to be like that? No personal stuff?"

He looks at her. Skye wonders if he knows what she means. She wonders if she herself knows.

He looks around, eyes wide like he's suddenly waken up. "We should be talking about the mission, not this."

"That answers my question."

 

**5:15**

She's put on some instrumental music, something from a soundtrack or other – Skye likes movie soundtracks, she feels like they give you a lot, you get a lot of different songs from different artists and you get to relive the movie experience for the price of just one album; when she was a teenager Skye used to buy cds (okay, _not buy_ ) of soundtracks for films she hadn't even seen, and she spent afternoons in her room listening to them and imagining what the movies were actually like, based on the music. They were not exactly happy times, at that age, for Skye, but they were simpler in a lot of ways and she kind of regrets the fact that she doesn't listen to music anymore, it doesn't have the same importance. She left all that behind when she left the orphanage and now she doesn't have any memories associated with it – not like Coulson does, not in the quiet, deep way he spoke about what kind of music his mother liked. Skye is almost glad she doesn't have that.

They have the music playing very low so it really doesn't matter, it's more like white noise; Coulson doesn't seem to pronounce himself one way or another, his eyes are fixed on the house, alert. He looks deep in thought and Skye doesn't disturb him for a while just yet, even if she is bored. She promised herself she was going to be a good stakeout companion. She's even brought healthier food this time, just to be considerate. She's brought fruit, even. She's not completely hopeless, though – she has actual snacks, too. They have spent the last ten minutes passing a bag of gummy bears back and forth (after Skye smugly asked if he knew this candy was originated in Germany and Coulson admitted that "no, I did not") and he is eating just as many as she is because Coulson is such an hypocrite.

"We should have brought a crossword or something," she says.

Coulson seems to consider it. "Wouldn't that distract us from surveillance?"

"Well, you can surveillance while I do the crossword."

"Do you do a lot of crosswords?" he asks. They must be devolving into early morning insanity because Skye thinks the word _crossword_ is beginning to sound really strange.

"Sure," she shrugs. "Every day. Hence my extensive vocabulary."

Coulson chuckles and that's a bit cruel but in the end Skye lets him have the last gummy bear; he's the boss, after all.

 

**5.51**

She hopes the other teams have more interesting tasks, maybe daytime surveillance is a lot more rewarding, in a general sense. Not that she doesn't appreciate spending eight hours in a small space with Coulson, enough that her clothes smell like his aftershave at the end of the day, but Skye is not a completely horrible person, that's not a reward she should care about; she kind of wants results. Or at least the illusion they are actually working on something.

This guy doesn't even go out for an early-morning jog.

"Hey," she calls out, gently, to a lost-in-serious-thought.again Coulson.

"What?"

"I'll stop digging into this guy's file," she tells him. Coulson looks relieved but something else too. Skye needs to tell him in no uncertain terms that this is not what she wants to do. "If you ask me. If it's an order. If you were to _order me_. Director."

He stares at her for a moment.

" _Skye_. I asked you to help me. I ask that you trust my judgement. But I can't order you. I can't."

She presses her lips together. "Okay, I'll try not to ruin your career but I can't promise anything."

"I was counting on that."

That's okay, she decides. They are okay. By the time Trip and Simmons come to take their places the heavy atmosphere is lifting, almost gone. Skye knows that maybe it's naive to think that will hold. She still has a lot of questions for _Director Coulson_. And well, she also has a couple of questions specifically for Phil Coulson, but that can wait, too. It can at least wait a day or two.

 

**6:08**

They are walking back. The morning is colder that it was yesterday and Coulson hurries to put his jacket back on.

"What kind of music do you like?" he asks as they are walking down the street.

Skye doesn't look at him, doesn't miss a beat. "80s music."

"Really?"

She shrugs. "Really."

Coulson tries to hide a smile, he certainly wasn't expecting that reply. It's the moment when the streetlights are turned off and you are just left with real light. They pass the diner on their way to their SUV. Skye says nothing. Gummy bears for breakfast is not exactly ideal but she's learned to work her way around _not exactly ideal_. When they get to headquarters and Coulson locks himself in his office again Skye promises herself next time she'll say something. Next time, tomorrow.

Tomorrow night.


	3. proximity

**wednesday**

**10:00**

"The other car was better."

"Mmm uh."

"More spacious."

"Exactly."

"More of that How To Be A Good SHIELD Director strategy?"

"It's only fair."

 

**10:02**

She notices that he keeps out of the way when she walks around him to get to her side of the car, like he is very explicitly avoiding to bump into her. He does that, lately – keep out of the way, stay detatched, at least from her – but she hasn't really thought about it until now.

He hasn't touched her in a long time and she's kind of realizing now.

Not beyond the accidental brush when they were entering the conference room or rushing into the plane for a mission. Not intentional touching.

It's not that they've ever been big on touching, each other or simply as individuals.

Skye would rather avoid over-familiar physical contact, if she hasn't initiated it, never was a fan, but she learned soon that might not be an option. People are touchy, they are casual touchers and she learned to be casual about it too, has learned not to shy away from strangers like when she was a girl. She's learned to do the opposite. She can read when a person would be okay with that. She learned people were more trusting of her if she seemed open to touch. Punching friends in the arm, letting girlfriends slip an arm around her shoulder, being physically approachable with boys, that's what people assume Skye is like anyway.

It's not that she's asking Coulson to high-five her in the hallways.

Coulson doesn't casually touch people. Not because of a hierarchy thing, she doesn't think so. And he's not cold. He doesn't keep his distance – well, he _didn't_ , now she's not sure why the change in his behavior towards her.

Their interactions seem... stilted, these days. 

It's not only him, it's Skye too. She is doing it as well.

She's beginning to wonder how they did it before; how did they touch? She tries to remembers previous instances, examples – a hug or Coulson's hand over hers or his fingers around her elbow to lead her somewhere. She knows these things happened. But she can't remember the process of it, the _how_ , to replicate it now. So they dance around issues like this one, too aware of one another – or maybe it's just Skye, she couldn't tell, she can never tell.

 

**11:16**

Another night another perfectly ironed suit that will get wrinkled by dawn.

Skye finds it almost charming, his stubborness in not wearing casual for this. And she likes this one, the pale gray suit. Not that she has any ranking of Coulson's suits in her mind, that would be creepy and pathetic, but this one is nice, something about the way it makes him look a lot less like a bureaucrat.

 

**11:36**

She does bring crossword puzzles as promised (threatened, whatever) but they are both pretty bad at it, and they get tired and quit it like ten minutes. Coulson acts sort of sucky when he is bad games, surprise, surprise.

But at least now she knows Tetra is a kind of aquarium fish.

 

**0:12**

The car _is_ smaller, and they find themselves getting in each other's way a lot more. Skye almost literally steps on him when she has to reach for her bag in the back seat. There's a bit of struggle and a couple of "sorry"s there, she's pretty sure she elbowed his head a bit. It's sort of impossible not to be aware of each other's bodies in a stakeout, and in detail, is what Skye is discovering and fast. Spend hours and hours on end trapped in a tin with Coulson, sure, that sounds like a sane, healthy idea, she tells herself – so they could _talk_ , sure, that was the whole plan, talking about stuff. She thinks she was doing better the previous two days of stakeout; working this close together has eroded her resolve very quickly. Or maybe it was the noticing he was avoiding any kind of physical contact. She doesn't know what did it.

Director Coulson was right, though: no respect from his subordinates whatsoever.

 

**0:39**

"Don't you think this car is too–?"

She's uncomfortable. She considers sitting cross-legged. But then she would be invading his space and pressing her knee against his leg.

Coulson turns to her. "What?"

She doesn't finish her question. It was more of a giveaway, actually. She wonders if Coulson pays any attention at all to the idea of proximity between them. "No, nothing."

 

**1:51**

They eat their dinner in silence. Not uncomfortable or anything, just concentrated. Salad, healthy stuff, something that doesn't smell. Next time Skye is buying. 

She balances the food and her drink over her knees, trying not to bump her elbow against Coulson, who is doing exactly the same thing, with the added difficulty of the wheel.

Coulson seems distracted while they eat, taking only very small bites at the time. She hasn't seen Coulson eat that many times, despite them having basically lived in the same place for the last year or so. Not that anyone else has. But she guesses the others don't notice this kind of stuff – Skye is pretty sure Simmons doesn't even realize Coulson requires food for his substenance and just accepts his absences from their meals as logical. It's kind of troubling. Skye prefers this, watching Coulson quietly stab a cherry tomato with his plastic fork. This whole stakeout situation has brought on a lot of domesticity between them, Skye thinks, whether Coulson wants to admit it or not, and that might not be a bad thing, but she'll hold off a veredit until the end of the week.

She remembers one of her last foster mothers and how she would forget about all kinds of stuff (take the groceries from the car, the date of a doctor's appointment, even once she forgot the time she had to pick up Skye from summer school) and she would write important reminders on her wrist with a magic marker. That detail always stuck with Skye, even now that she struggles to remember the face of the person who was her family for a short while.

Skye wishes she had a magic marker with her now, to scribble _professional, professional_ on her skin.

 

**3:04**

This time she actually loads some jazzy stuff into her iPod, on the off chance that she wasn't wrong in her intuition. Basic, easy-to-wikipedia stuff: Billie Holliday, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, that sort.

Coulson says nothing but Skye _wasn't_ wrong – he can't fool her, that's definitely a pleased expression as the songs progress. And not just the expression – his shoulders relax. It's easier to tell with that light suit, for some reason. It's easier to take in Coulson's frame. This is one of the reasons she thinks she likes it – he's not just a suit in it, he's a whole person, with a body. And he's nicely built, she thinks, perfectly aware of how unprofessional the assesment is, despite having just promised herself she wasn't going to do that. But – there's something non-threatening about Coulson, even though she knows how capable he is in a fight. Non-threatening has always gone a long way with Skye, even more so recently.

She decides to stop thinking about Coulson's body, now for real. At least as long as they have this romantic kind of music playing on.

 

**3:21**

"Front row seat for the craziest show on earth, he said," Skye mutters while she takes a couple of useless shots of the empty street around them. "Yep, pretty crazy from where I stand."

"Want to try jumping the fence and getting a closer look?" he asks, quirking the edge of his mouth up.

"Hey, hey, don't joke, because that's exactly the kind of idea _I_ would suggest."

"Yes, it is. And that's why we work in teams of two."

 

**3:58**

Skye doesn't know if it's Coulson's silent influence and contentment but apparently she likes this jazzy stuff too.

She slides down in her seat, not tired, just looking at the sky through the windshield. It's a cloudy night, almost completely, white brushes all over the night darkness.

"Tired?" he asks, and the night is approaching that point where his voice becomes softer and less boss-like. Skye has only witnessed this twice, so it's not really a thing that happens, it's just that it seems to keep happening, that slight change, the drifting into some kind of deeper intimacy betweent them.

"Not really," she says, smiling at him.

 

**4:05**

At some point Coulson falls asleep.

Skye must have been distracted, or lost in thought, because she doesn't notice exactly when it happens.

She just knows at some point of the night she turns around and Coulson is sleeping where he sits, cheek resting on the back of the seat, body turned towards her, head tipped towards Skye's shoulder, lips slightly parted, and breathing shallowly and evenly.

He looks peaceful for the first time in a long time. At least that she's seen.

Skye smiles to herself at the absurdity of catching him in such a situation. She shifts in her seat, turning towards him as well to get a better view of his sleeping frame. It's unprecedented. Skye moves in closer and her first thought is that it's funny more than anything else.

Soon she starts feeling bad about watching him like this, though, without him knowing, like she's spying. Like he's the one under surveillance. She doesn't have many chances like this, to be able to just look at him, so close and so uninterrupted until his face becomes something unfamiliar. Skye can't remember a time when this face wasn't a face that managed to make her happy. Corny, she knows, and she thought she didn't do corny. It wasn't like that from the beginning – the first time she saw that face all she could think of was " _well of course scary men in dark suits look like that_ ", which was – not very scary, just frighteningly normal. That changed soon (something about the way he asked her name once she was in his custody) but she had no idea how much she'd come to appreciate that face, how much comfort it would give her to see it when in her darkest moments. But she's getting corny again. It's Coulson's fault for falling asleep and having that nice sleeping-face. His cheek and the lines on his forehead and the shape of his nose and the stubble beginning to appear. 

But this is unfair. No person should be watching another sleep without them saying it's okay. She wouldn't like Coulson to _watch her_ sleep, and it's Coulson. So she decides to wake him up.

There's a moment of hesitation while she tries to decide on a method. She could just call out to him, of course. Or shake him by the shoulder. But for some reason she decides to reach out her hand and press one fingertip against his cheek, almost in a jokey way, like she's poking experimentally.

Coulson stirs immediately at the touch, waking up.

He opens his eyes. Very wide. He looks freaked out, glancing down at himself, then, for a moment, at Skye's hands.

She bites her lip, thinks about apologizing profusely, then doesn't.

"Hi," she says. "You were going to hurt your neck like that. Just looking out for the boss. Plus you were drooling."

Coulson narrows his eyes at her, like when he is annoyed at her, but then he wipes his chin with the back of his hand. 

Skye laughs, softly.

"I am kidding, you didn't drool."

He leans back on the seat, relaxed now, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Sorry. I just – "

"Haven't been getting much sleep lately?" Skye finishes for him. He looks surprised. He shouldn't be. "Yeah I noticed. You are great at pretending everything is all right with you, but I know. I notice things."

He blinks at her. His eyes are clear now. "You do."

"Sir... why are you not sleeping?"

He takes a moment. He massages the back of his neck and from the way he winces Skye knows that she wasn't wrong, that position must have been killing him. He loosens his tie a bit, like he needs a deeper breath.

"I go to sleep and when I wake up I feel more tired than before," he tells her.

"Sorry, I should have let you sleep," she says. He makes a disagreeing sound that doesn't quite make it to actual word. "Have you talked to Simmons? You should get those things checked out."

She can hear him swallow.

"I'm scared to."

And for a moment, well, he does look scared. And that's not something Skye is used to handling. Coulson is... well, Coulson is brave. He is the kind of person other people need when they are scared. It's unnatural that he should need someone. But Skye is here, at least. She thinks about all those times he's reassured her (and then she thinks about those other times _she_ has reassured him, there have been a few of those, too).

"You are not the kind of person who runs from things just because he's scared," Skye tells him. "You take scary things head on."

He frowns – not the bad kind of frown, though.

The situation is not domestic, it's something else.

She thinks about reaching out for him, grabbing his hand or something like that, any small gesture of comfort. And she almost does, but then she remembers he hasn't wanted to touch her lately and the idea stops her. She tries with words instead.

"Why don't you sleep a bit longer? I'll keep guard for you."

He gives her a strange, sad look.

"Guard over my sleep or the suspect?"

He rests his hand on Skye's forearm. Even through the denim Skye can feel the warmth of the touch more than she feels the touch itself. She was right, he hasn't touched her in a long time, because this is the difference, and because she would remember – like she knows she will remember the shape of his thumb as it presses against the spot where her arm meets her wrist.

It's not an invasive touch, or inappropriate in any way, but Coulson snaps out of it and looks at her and he must think it is, because he withdraws the hand, quickly, shocked and apologetic about it. The warmth is gone.

"I'm so sorry," he says, voice like his gesture is some unforgivable transgression, or like he believes Skye might think it is. "I think I'm still a bit asleep."

"It's okay," she says. 

It's more than okay, she thinks. It had felt good. Coulson was in some kind of pain and he had sought comfort in that touch. Skye doesn't want him to be in a bad place, of course, but she's irrationally pleased that he felt that touching her might help him – she's not pleased at how quickly he decided it was wrong to do so, though. The pressure of his hand on her arm had felt good, almost as much as the intent, and Skye had found herself wanting for it to go on for a long, long time.

Coulson turns on his side, no longer facing her.

 

**4:43**

Her mind is buzzing with questions. 

Not just about what has just happened.

Or what hasn't, for accuracy.

She's worried, of course. Ever since they found out May was put on the Bus to make sure Coulson was okay... and well, Fury had said he was okay and that was good, except then there was the day when Coulon spoke to everybody about Project T.A.H.I.T.I. About the full scope of his involvement. Skye has watched the video. She is not sure if the rest of the team have (she assumes May has). Hearing about the side effects of his treatment. All that information has her wondering if she can trust Fury's assessment of the situation. And now Coulson says he hasn't been sleeping and well, he does look unhealthy, and this is a whole other level of having a lot of things to talk about with him, a whole other level of worrying, not just about his position as Director and what she feels _about that_.

This is about more than just doing CIA's menial work like rookies.

This is about more than just the sense of something-is-about-to-happen she's been carrying around since – since the days they were living all together in a crappy motel. This is about more than the fact that nothing has really happened and is damaging them as partners.

This is about more than just Skye.

It kind of sucks, because when she is in a situation where she doesn't know what's the right move the person she'd like to run to for advice the most is Coulson. And she can't.

She looks up through the window, can see the clouds and the whole sky pinking up.

 

**5:17**

She actually has a theory about why the CIA wants Coulson to take this mission – other than generally humilliating SHIELD.

But she is going to keep it to herself until she has proof, or at least until Fitz has finished tweaking with his gadget, the one that might give Skye access to the suspect's computer to see what he's really up to.

They haven't talked about the mission at all tonight, only in the most practical of senses. She wonders if he thinks she's let it go like he instructed, just because she hasn't brought it up. He can't be that naive. Hopefully by the time _he_ brings it up Skye will have that actual solid proof she's bidding her time for.

 

**5:49**

"Do you want some help with that?" he asks, when she starts to pack her stuff, equipment, crossword magazine and food leftovers.

He is being super weird right now, voice and face and everything. More than just these-last-couple-of-months weird. Another level of weird. Skye doesn't know if it's a good thing. She forgets for a moment about the sleeplessness stuff, concentrates in the way Coulson looked at her as his fingers were curled around her arm, that brief moment before his gaze clouded with some sort of shame at what he had just done. 

Absently she touches her fingers to that spot above her wrist. Coulson follows the gesture.

"No, I'm fine," she says quickly, a little too quickly. "I'll be all packed in a moment."

 

**5:59**

"You _both_ look awful," Trip tells them.

"Sleep deprivation," Coulson says, and only Skye can detect the sharpness of the voice.

"Boredom," she replies, in a way she knows will make Simmons (and Trip by extension) smile and distract them for worrying about it further. 

 

**7:02**

In the base he's about to walk away from her without a word.

Yes, sir, she thinks, that's totally happening.

"What are you going to do now? Go to your office and try _not_ to sleep?" she asks, a bit too abrupt. Coulson doesn't reply. She softens her voice. "Do you want some company? If you want to keep talking."

They haven't really talked tonight and they haven't talked about _this_ , but Skye would like to try nonetheless, trying is the only thing she can promise, and she is not sure what she is asking for, or offering, here, what she wants company to mean or what she wants Coulson to think it does.

He shakes his head. "You go grab some rest. I'll see you in the afternoon."

She watches him go, eyes fixed on his back.

In that suit it's easier to notice the sunken shoulders, tension weighing down on him.


	4. in danger

**thursday**

**10:14**

"No soup today?"

"You are not letting that one go."

"I'm not teasing you, I swear."

"It was your turn to bring dinner."

"Sandwiches. But hey you're in luck, Simmons made them."

 

**10:59**

This is usually the case, Skye finds they have too much to talk about, and end up circling around the same subjects. She's doing it on purpose, of course, perhaps until she gets the answer she wants from him. Perhaps until she gets an answer that's not complete bullshit.

She has never seen Coulson be this _careful_ before. She doesn't like it.

You are free, she wants to tell him.

"When I said we could all still go to prison... You know I made sure they have nothing on us, right? I wiped everything clean."

"I know," Coulson says. "But we are ex-terrorists by our own admissions."

She has thought about that already. He should have more faith on how sneaky she can get.

"Yes, I'm sure the CIA thinks those taped conversations are very safe on their private servers but they are really not. It's the great thing about the nuclear option – you can use it as many times as you need to. I have."

He looks confused.

"I thought you didn't like the nuclear option," he says.

Skye shrugs. "Beats having to do CIA's bidding. Beats being kept in the dark about their real motives."

"You really don't like following orders."

"No, I'm not into it. And are you figuring that out just now?"

He smiles. Her insubordination never seems to bother him. It's a nice smile, among the bullshit.

"Skye... Are they trying to hurt us? Should I ask you what the hell this guy is up to?" he says, gesturing towards the house.

"Not yet." 

"You're protecting me," he points out.

"It's kind of my job."

"At any point the CIA is going to tell me to drop it, if we keep digging. Make it look like it's our fault, for overstepping. I know how these people work, Skye. I've been in this position before."

He definitely should have more faith on how sneaky she can be, because there's no way she's going to leave a trace. It must sound ironic now but that could be the title of her biography.

"Well, that's the price of freedom for you," she tells him. "You're just giving up a kind of freedom for another, no one really wins."

That sounds a lot like the Rising Tide manifesto. Well, she still believes in all those things, never really stopped. She just _adjusted_.

"You're the expert on freedom," Coulson says. "I'm not."

Skye gets the feeling he doesn't say that because of the Rising Tide.

"You know the quote," she tells him.

"What quote?"

"From a song, I think. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."

Coulson looks at her for a moment. He draws a long breath before turning his face away from her.

"That doesn't apply to us anymore."

Us and us and _us_. She isn't quite sure if Coulson is talking about "us" in the sense of the team, or _us_ us. He hasn't used that second inflection in some time and she is afraid she is just imagining it.

 

**0:23**

She first sees the car speed up like something out of a weird dream, slow and inevitable.

He's return from making the call to the team.

She calls out but she knows it would always be too late. His name barely a mouthed sound. It all happens unfairly fast, like it always does. And it's not like she's not quick, because she's already out of the car but Skye is sure that she could be a SHIELD agent for decades and still not get used to things like action, and danger. _Danger_. Seeing someone else in danger is much worse.

Even within the shock of what is happening Skye realizes some things, files them for later use: they have been watched as well, for days probably. And these people knew exactly who they wanted to hurt. Whoever is driving the car he was waiting for Coulson.

A big, black suv. Tinted windows. It disappears, fast and turning like a maniac, around the corner. The screeching sound of tires makes Skye clench her teeth as she runs to the side of the driver. She doesn't want to think about how fucking fast that car is going.

Fortunately Coulson had seen it coming for him, and Coulson is fast, too.

Fortunately she has seen him avoid the impact, flinging himself against their car. She's pretty convinced that he is not hurt. 

That doesn't make the short run around the car to his side any less panicked.

" _Coulson_?"

He's sitting on the ground but he looks all right. More than all right. He looks calm. Skye knows she could never be like that.

"Did that car just try to run you over?" she asks him, like an idiot. Her heart is still in her mouth.

Coulson looks up, hair and clothes a bit messed up by the effort.

"I think that was the idea, yes," he says.

"Do you think it was him? Or the CIA?"

"Or both."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he says, wiping his hands on his jacket.

"Did you see the plate?"

He lets out an exasperated sigh. "I saw enough to know it was fake. But we'll try running it."

"That's fine. We can find it. Use the satellites and follow –" she looks at him. She realizes he hasn't moved. "Why are you still sitting on the ground?"

Coulson gives her a hopeless, almosy embarrassed look.

"I think I twisted my ankle," he says, sounding pissed off at himself, as if it were all his ankle's fault for being so weak. Like Skye is going to make fun of him for it. She's just glad it's not something worse.

Skye crouches by his side and hold out her hand. "Well then. Come on. Let's get you in the back seat. I'll get the first aid kit."

He nods.

When he slips one arm around Skye's shoulders for balance Skye realizes what a heavy, solid thing he is. And how warm he feels pressed against her. She holds him up by wrapping one arm around his waist, the other coming to rest over his stomach gingerly. It's just a couple of steps that she has to help him, really.

He climbs into the back seat, dragging his foot carefully.

Skye's mind is still full of adrenaline. It was spooky. She's trying to formulate some kind of plan here, so Coulson doesn't have to.

"Where's your ICER?" she asks him.

"I don't think they'll try anything else. I think it was just some old-fashioned intimidation."

"I agree. But I have to go warn the team of what happened and I'm not leaving you unless you have protection within your reach."

She gives his injured foot a look. Coulson seems to agree. "Glove compartment," he says.

She gives him the gun. Takes her own out of her bag and tucks it at her back, under her shirt.

"Wait here," she tells him. "I'll call Fitz from the next block. I'll have him running sat on that car, okay?"

Coulson nods.

But then he grabs Skye's arm. She turns around. The touch of his fingers around her wrist is light, but urgent.

"Look out for speeding cars," he says, with a bit of humor, trying to keep his voice in check.

Skye is too worried about Coulson almost getting killed just a moment ago to care about such things as the way he is holding on to her, but even so she finds herself caring a bit.

"I'll be careful," she says, promises, and then and only then he lets her go.

 

**1:16**

By the time she gets back he has taken off his shoe and sock, and he is checking the injured area with an skeptical look on his face. Skye can see the swelling even from where she is. In the grand scheme of things it's pretty minor but it must be uncomfortable anyway. And Coulson doesn't do silly things like playing stoic for the sake of it, but his face rarely betrays when he is in pain.

"May told me to stay put," she says. "That they'll investigate what the hell is going on, on their end."

"Good call," he says.

He massages the front of his foot, where the swelling looks worst. He winces.

"Ouch," Skye says.

"A bit."

"It's just an sprained ankle, right? Everything else is just fine."

"Yes, but I have to be careful with these things. At my age..."

He quirks his mouth upwards. Definitely a smirk, so he can't be in too much pain. Skye rolls her eyes, wondering if he is ever going to stop it with that. This time it sounds like a genuine joke, though, genuinely teasing.

"Yes, your advanced age has you so impeded," she tells him. "I saw how fast you avoided that car. Like a cat. Or a ninja. Or a ninja cat. Seriously, it was impressive, I would have been run over for sure."

"I work out."

Skye chuckles, but then she sort of frowns to herself. Coulson just sounded – flirty, for a moment there.

She's taken the first aid kit from the trunk.

"I don't need bandages," Coulson says. "Just give me something for the pain."

"Let me, okay. I've got this."

And he lets her.

She tries not to think about how weird it is, to be basically holding her boss' foot in her hand in the back of a car. She tries not to think about the weirdness. She thinks injury, pain, danger. She thinks _help him_. She's not really recovered from the image of that car trying to run Coulson over, but it's good to have something else to concentrate on. She's been doing med training with Simmons and Trip, because she thought it might come in handy, so she knows what she's doing.

She looks around a bit for it and she's glad she remembered to pack it, the cooling spray. She applies it to the swollen area and she can hear Coulson making a low, throaty noise of instant relief. She doesn't know why she has taken over like a maniac, as if she was Simmons, it's just a sprained ankle, it's not code red medical emergency. Calm the hell down, Skye, she repeats to herself.

The car soon fills with the particular scent of the spray.

"This smell brings me back," she comments, smiling.

Coulson gives her a questioning look.

"One of my foster brothers was an obsessive field hockey player," she tells him. "He wasn't very good though. Got hurt a lot. The whole house smelled of analgesic on practice nights."

"How old were you?" Coulson asks, gently.

"Fourteen. My brother was fifteen. They were a nice family. I liked them."

"What happened to your brother?"

"I don't really know. I got moved back to the orphanage. He stayed with the family." She tries to remember his face. She can't. "I don't think he ever made it to professional field hockey, though."

She puts the spray can back in the kit. Funny, she can't remember how the house smelled on the days where there was no hockey practice. Hell, she can't even remember what the house _looked like_. She can only remember this smell.

She can feel Coulson's glance on her.

"Does it still hurt?" she asks him.

He shakes his head. He looks at her with one of those unreadable looks he gives her some times, those looks that could mess with Skye's head if she let them.

 

**1:37**

Somehow he manages to make it to the passenger's seat. She helps him again and eventually he's sitting as comfortably as he's going to get. She pushes a couple of painkillers into his hand and fishes a bottle of water out of her bag for him.

"Do you think we should just go home?" she asks him, in all honesty.

"No. We haven't received orders to stop the investigation yet."

Skye can see him thinking. That little frown when he is figuring something out. She likes it, it makes her feel safe, because it's very rare that Coulson doesn't arrive at the right conclusion. He's calculating the possibility that they were really trying to kill him, and not just threaten him. His body relaxes and at least Skye knows he has discarded the possibility that they are still in danger. Then she can see his jaw set, considering the alternatives. That someone is doing this to humilliate them, to prove they are weak. That the suspect really wants them gone from around his house. That someone is trying to distract them. All of them pretty worrying, as possibilities go. With that she knows Skye is inclined to believe it's a combination of all three.

"What's the point of conducting surveillance on someone who knows he's being watched?" she asks.

Though she suspects this has been the case from day one.

"I will not be intimidated," Coulson says, eyes on the house's entrance.

"That's more like it, Director."

 

**2:10**

After Centipede kidnapped Coulson and after he was returned Skye remembers she once tried to talk to Simmons about what kind of torture Coulson must have endured at their hands, after Simmons had taken care of the damage. Simmons couldn't tell her anything, of course, but she didn't need to, Skye could see it on her face, and with that and Coulson blatanly lying to her when she asked about the machine and the fact that he locked himself in his office for the next day - she remembers how hard it had been for everybody.

She doesn't know why she is thinking about that moment right now. It still hurts to look back on those hours, there's still that pressure on her chest, just remembering, how it had felt not knowing where Coulson was, and then later thinking he was hurt. That was a defining moment of sorts, for her. She doesn't know why she is remembering that stuff now. Except that she doesn't like thinking about Coulson in physical pain – even if it's just a sprained ankle.

 

**2:49**

"I should call the guys again," Skye says, apprehensive, not wanting to leave him alone again. "Make sure we haven't been ordered back or anything."

"The team would have come pick us up. But you're right. I would do it myself but..."

Skye touches the inside of her wrist distractedly. She shakes her head.

"It's okay. I have my gun. You have your gun. We're going to be fine."

We're going to be fine, like he needs reassuring. Like he is the spooked subordinate. She feels protective. This is nothing new. But she keeps doing it and at some point Coulson is going to figure out why.

 

**3:21**

She knows he probably doesn't feel like talking anymore about this, probably just wants some rest and quiet. But he still looks worried.

"Do you think this is a test?" she asks. She normally lets him be, she normally cares about whether he is in the mood to talk to her or not. Skye doesn't know what the hell is wrong with her lately.

"I don't know, Skye, These days I think everything is a test." She gives him a look. He pauses, silently apologizing for the rash tone. Explaining himself. "When I was _Agent Coulson_ I knew who my enemies were, who might try to kill me and why. It wasn't a short list but it was manageable. But now I'm..."

" _Director Coulson_."

"Exactly."

"And you don't know who the enemies are. Or their motives. And the list got endless."

He looks out of the window. It's weird seeing him in the passenger's seat, wth her at the wheel. But his sprained ankle makes him unfit to drive in case they have to escape the place and fast.

"And now I get why Director Fury became the man he became," he says, after a while. It's strange that he gets so direct so quickly about such a subject, and of his own volition. Skye freezes at the mention. "And I get why he couldn't trust anyone. Why he took decisions he should have never taken. I get it. And I wonder if he would have trusted me, if I had been around when everything went up in flames."

"You think he wouldn't have wanted you close?" she asks. It's not like she didn't hear the rumors going around the Hub, it's just that she was a bit preoccupied at the time. But she heard all right, the barely-hushed conversations about Coulson's relevance, or lack of. He had told her Fury gave him the plane to make up for him almost dying before the Battle of New York. Other agents' most popular position was that he felt pity for Coulson.

"I think he was too worried about me being a zombie to _really_ think about me being trustworthy," Coulson tells her.

She doesn't know much about Nick Fury. But she knows Coulson is not Nick Fury. Not yet, anyway.

"You're not a zombie. Although technically - and... You have people you can trust," she says. She knows it's a lame, useless thing to say, but it needs to be said.

"I imagine that's what Fury thought at first."

"That's such a... _sad_ idea, sir."

He turns his body towards her. His eyes don't leave hers. There's something very intent, almost unfamiliar, in the way he's looking at her right now. He draws an audible breath. Skye, without knowing she's doing it, copies him. There it is again, the feeling that something is about to happen, something is about to break. She can tell the moment he lets go of whatever he was thinking because his eyes change, just before he flashes a small, distracting smile.

"I think eight hours is a lot of time to spend trapped in a car with anyone," he tells her.

"I agree!" They both chuckle. That tiny moment is gone, but this is good too. Skye thinks it is. It's good enough at least. "But I'm glad you are talking. That we are talking. I've missed it."

"We talk," he protests. Skye tilts her head. He concedes. "A bit."

"Not like _before_. Not like the other night. You haven't talked about Ward, or about Fury, or about what it's like to be Director of SHIELD. You keep _not talking_."

Coulson has the decency not to try and deny that.

 

**4:06**

She grabs the plastic bag, neatly packed, and tilts it in temptation towards him.

"Breakfast."

"It's four a.m." Coulson says.

"Then _not_ breakfast."

"What is it?"

"Some kind of oatmeal cereal bars, I don't really know what the hell, I think they might be homemade. And fruit. Fruit is good." He arches one eyebrow. "I'm spoiling you, I know. Once again. _Simmons_ packed it. I didn't know what to bring and I panicked and asked for her help."

"It's fine. I'm not hungry anyway."

"I'm sorry. I'm not that great at this stuff."

"It's fine."

She stays away from the cereal bars, but she takes an apple. Simmons has written their names on the bag, as if someone was going to steal their food or take it by mistake or something. Like this was a regular office job. It makes Skye smile fondly when she sees it, Simmons has actually written _Director Coulson_ with a magic marker.

"Did anyone teach you to cook?" she asks him.

"Are you still talking about the soup?" He sounds infinitely amused about the idea. "I'm sorry to tell you this but Skye, making soup is really easy, anyone can do it. You just throw a lot of stuff into boiling water."

That's not – that wasn't really her question.

"I'm really interested."

"No one taught me," he says after a moment. "I've lived on my own most of my life, I had to learn how to cook, to take care of myself."

She can't imagine Coulson in a flat, surrounded by everyday things, electric appliances, a coffee table, bills. She can't imagine him doing laundry or oversleeping on Sunday mornings. She can't imagine him outside SHIELD headquarters or the plane or temporary bases. Just like she can't imagine herself in a flat, surrounded by everyday things, either.

"Well, I've been on my own most of my life, too," she argues, "but I've never owned a kitchen so I don't know how to cook anything. Is it fun?"

"Is cooking fun? Yes, actually it is. Juts not as fun as eating."

She tries to cross her legs and shift in her seat but then she remembers she's the driver and wheel doesn't leave her that much room to maneuver.

"So hey, when did you decide to become a foodie? Is it okay to call you that? Everyone says that about you. Not everyone. May says that."

He looks at her. She realizes she's talking too much, has been talking too much. Any moment now he is going to tell her to shut up.

"It's not something one decides," he says. "I enjoy eating well. I like reading restaurant reviews. I came to a point in my life where I had enough money to afford to eat well."

Skye wonders how that must have felt. When she joined SHIELD she had eighty-three dollars to her name. She knows Coulson is far from rich (she has had to take care of his file, erase all traces of him, she knows exactly how rich he is or isn't) but he has used what he had wisely enough to be able to afford the things he wants. That's sort of a novel concept for Skye. When she was younger she didn't know there were people who didn't live hand-to-mouth. 

"A friend and I once stole a reservations in this really fancy restaurant in downtown Chicago," she tells Coulson. "Apparently we were too stupid to realize that stealing a reservation didn't mean everything was already paid."

"What happened?"

Skye bites her lower lip, arching her eyebrow at him. "That's classified."

 

**5:02**

She was going to tell him to rest a while, but apparently she didn't have to.

This time she catches him an the exact moment where he falls asleep, slowly and then all of the sudden. The side of his head resting against the window. His mouth parted like last night. He has more room in that seat, this time he looks a bit more comfortable.

She looks away. Tonight she is going to give him all the privacy she can. She puts on one of the news shows she has in her ipod, so the sound of the radio would drown the sound of Coulson snoring lightly – hearing him would be intruding too.

She lets him be. He needs the rest more than he needs to avoid a neck cramp.

 

**5:33**

His eyes are unfocused at first, and the on her.

"It seems like I keep doing that," he says, voice low and thick. "Falling asleep on you."

"Well, it wasn't – it wasn't _on me_." But I wouldn't mind, she thinks. "I don't mind, really."

 

**6:15**

She can tell Trip and Simmons are nervous about taking over for them, after what's happened tonight. Skye understands. She tells Simmons her food was delicious, to distract her a bit. She's in safe hands. They all are, she realizes. The team. 

"What game do you think they are playing here?"

Coulson massages the back of his neck, feeling those minutes he was asleep. "I don't know, Trip. I don't know."

Trip is smart enough to realize there's more to it than a simple murder attempt.

"Will they... Do you think they'll come back for more, sir?" Simmons asks.

"No," Skye tells her. "You're safe. But keep your ICERs close, just in case. And Trip... status update every two hours."

Coulson nods at her words. 

"Are you okay?" Simmons asks him, looking him up and down. Implying that even if he tells her that he is fine that doesn't mean she has to believe it. Skye thinks it's a weird power play between Simmons and Coulson, because she is his subordinate but as his doctor she gets to order him around all she wants.

Coulson gives Skye a little, almost imperceptible sideways look.

"I'm all right," he tells Simmons. "Skye took care of it."

He's still in pain but now he can almost put all his weight on his foot, he's almost functional, he just has to grab Skye's shoulder all the way to their car.

 

**7:12**

They walk the hallways together, towards the bedrooms area. The emergency lights are creepy more than anything, more than actually useful, but they know their way around the place already. She doesn't have to help him anymore. The swelling has gone down enough that Coulson can walk on his own. She tells him to swing by the meds cabinet before going to bed, use an elastic compression wrap. She doesn't want to come off too strong, though, Coulson already has a one nagging doctor on his case. Except that after what he told Skye about not being able to sleep she wishes they were both more on his case, or did a better job of it.

"Maybe you should get something to eat, something warm. For the, uh, the injury."

"I have a sprained ankle. What kind of nourishment do you think I need?"

"Okay, got it."

She turns to walk away and get to her room, a bit ticked off. But he stops her with one hand on her elbow. Once again the touch is light, almost too light, but the intention is there. 

"I know you worry," he tells her. "And it's appreciated. But _don't_. I'm okay."

"Well, you know me, for some reason seeing my boss almost get run over by a car isn't my idea of stakeout fun. I'm weird like that. " She thinks about how his fingers are still wrapped around her arm. "You sure you're going to be fine alone?" 

It must be obvious to him that she's not just talking about his ankle. It _must be_. 

For a moment he doesn't reply. For a moment he actually hesitates, like saying anything other than _I'm fine, go away, Skye_ is a real possibility. Skye swallows. He has the same expression as before in the car, when he _looked_ at her. 

And then she feels his fingers slip off the crook of her elbow, dropping. 

"I'm sure," he says. 

This time it's Skye the one who walks away, even though he doesn't sound like he's sure at all. 


	5. a storm

**FRIDAY**

**21:57**

"You don't look in a great mood."

"You wouldn't be either, if you had watched yourself grovel on the phone to the CIA all afternoon."

"What did you want me to do?"

"Not grovel."

 

**22:06**

This time he doesn't have an excuse to keep the suit intact, but then neither has she.

She should have checked the weather. Or he should have.

They didn't know a storm was coming until it was well over their heads.

"We should have checked the weather," she says over the gushing sound of rain, pushing the crate with Fitz's invention into the car. Coulson nods. He's narrowing his eyes while he keeps the door open for her, trying to see better through the sheet of water coming down on them all of the sudden.

Five minutes later they are inside the car and Coulson is throwing his jacket in the back seat, unceremoniously, his tie, too. His hair is wet but all in all he doesn't look as bad as Skye, water dripping from her hair, and with her shirt completely drenched and sticking to her body.

"I can't sit all night here like this," Skye sighs, gesturing at her clothes.

"There's a sweater in that bag," Coulson tells her. "And a towel."

She climbs out of the passenger seat.

She finds the sweater, old SHIELD logo on the breast and all. She has the hem of her shirt gripped to peel it off her when she stops to look at Coulson over her shoulder.

"No peeking," Skye says.

He gives her a judgemental glare. She takes off her shirt and puts on the sweater quickly and expertly – one of her own personal skills, changing very quickly in and out of clothes. She climbs back into the passenger seat in a moment. Coulson's eyes fixed on the street. No peeking indeed. She must have been out of her mind.

When she comes back to the front Coulson turns up the heat. It's not the most comfortable she's ever been but on the other hand she's pretty sure she's not going to die of pneumonia.

"Thanks. Not a great beginning of the shift," she comments.

"Do you still have good visibility?"

"Yep, don't worry."

She towels her hair, wondering when was the last time she had it cut. It's not very practical. She decides she should get around to it soon. She gives Coulson a sideways look. Drops trickle along his furrowed brow.

"What?" he asks.

"Do you want the towel?"

 

**23:51**

She never talked back to teachers at school. Or at least not until she was older. She was a rapt audience in the classroom – a suck up, if you will. She always stayed behind to help tidy up the classroom and put away the class supplies. Okay, other kids teased her about it.

Okay, for a period of her life, Skye was pretty much poster child for the expression "teacher's pet".

She stopped being compliant a long time ago – by the time she was fourteen that person was completely gone.

But she hasn't stopped trying way too hard.

Rebelliousness is a choice, not something that comes naturally to her.

She doesn't know why she is being so insistent with Coulson these days.

 

**00:12**

It never really stops raining.

Even when Skye puts on some music but the noise of water against the windshield drowns it out.

 

**00:24**

"How do you call this thing? Anti-noise machine?" he asks when he sees her fidgeting with Fitz's item.

"Anti-noise _machine_? That is cute." Coulson looks away. She chuckles at his pouting. "Don't worry, I don't know ninety-per-cent of what Fitz comes up with, either. But I'm reading some books."

"Trying to diversify?" he asks, the side of his mouth quirked upwards.

It's embarrassing for Skye to actually talk about it.

"I don't want to be just software girl. And I know I'm just a high school dropout but I'd like to be able to follow a FitzSimmons conversation at some point, for a change."

Coulson looks at her, hesitanting, his fingers finding the steering wheel unconsciously, for anchor. "How is he?"

"Fitz?" _He's fine_ , she wants to say, and it wouldn't be a lie. More accurately she could say he wants to make up for the lost time, and he is desperate to get his muscles (brain and otherwise) back to working order. Coulson might see it differently but Skye thinks that pushing yourself too hard isn't such a bad idea sometimes. Sometimes it's the only thing you have. "He's a lot better. But you should ask him yourself."

He looks down for a moment.

"I don't think he'd feel comfortable telling me the truth."

"Why don't you tell him you have some experience with off-time yourself?" she asks. He arches an eyebrow. "Sorry. I wasn't being... You did tell me to look into everybody's files. And I saw you were off-duty for three months."

"That wasn't – I was twenty-five, I don't even remember it at this point. And it wasn't like with Fitz. I just spent a couple of months eating SHIELD pudding in a hospital bed."

She can't imagine Coulson confined to a bed for so lon anymore than she can imagine him being twenty-five, that's what that detail in his psych evaluation stuck with her.

"Still. Things like that, they could help Fitz stop seeing you as a boss."

"It's a good thing that you all see me as a boss," he points out.

"Well, yes, _sir_ , but we don't have to see you as _just_ a boss."

His expression is doubtful, like he is not sure that's a better idea at all.

Skye herself has never held a proper job until she met the men in dark suits from SHIELD so she is not sure how to properly relate to a boss. She's been doing it poorly, she guesses. The "professional, professional" mantra so quickly forgotten. She tried to copy Simmons and Fitz at first, how they behaved around authority, but that didn't work. Maybe because Coulson himself never treated her the way he treated Fitz and Simmons. She knows he should have, but he didn't.

 

**1:08**

"You know that digging I haven't been doing? This guy is like a darker version of Tony Stark. Built his first engine at ten."

"Stark built his first engine at six," Coulson argues quickly.

Skye smiles. He does get protective about the Avengers.

 

**1:40**

He asked if she was protecting him.

That was just a day ago but it feels a lot longer.

Skye doesn't see the point in protecting someone from something that's already happened, from choices they've already made. If she had done the research first and asked questions later, if he had used her capacities sooner. If he didn't insist on the whole strong, lone leader charade.

"They mean to ridicule you, you know," she tells him. "The CIA, this dude, the Army who wants to buy this technology for themselves. Not just us, they mean to punish you personally."

"I know that."

"If you drop this they'll say new SHIELD is not up to the task."

"And if we stay the whole week he will be exonerated from any wrongdoing and the sell will go just as planned," he finishes. He sounds quite calm for a person who's being used as a pawn in a game of war-profiteering. Which mean Coulson knew exactly what he was walking into here. "We are their insurance, that's why the whole stakeout front."

"We were trapped the minute you said yes."

"I know that too."

 

**1:58**

"There are these rules we have to follow," he says, after a while, like he needs to explain himself.

He hasn't tried to explain himself in almost two months.

Somehow it doesn't feel like progress to Skye.

"I'm not good at following rules." She doesn't mean to sound flippant, it's a reflex more than anything.

"Skye, you're not a kid."

She sits up, cross legged like she is trying to deflect his point, turning to face him.

"No, I'm not," she agrees, tone sharp. "And we are not the same people we once were. I'm not a wide-eyed lonely girl standing around a holocom as a guy in a dark suit is trying to convince me to help him save Mike Peterson. I have no problem telling you when you're being a..."

"What?"

She stops. There's a limit to _unprofessional_ and the limit isn't the hungry way she's been looking at Coulson since before this started, the limit isn't her stupid dreams and expectations and absurd hopes. This limit is this. She's not a kid. She doesn't need to call names.

" _Nothing_."

"Skye, I can see _the word_ in your face."

"Well, you are being exactly that." She pauses. She doesn't want a shouting match but she can feel herself working towards it. She takes a deep breath. "Look, I know you want us to be legitimized –"

"SHIELD's name. It has to be cleaned."

She throws her hands in the air.

"Why? It's just a name. It's a lot harder to clean yourself than a name, believe me."

Coulson frowns. "I thought you didn't want to be a vigilante."

"Are those my only two options?"

"Yes, they are."

"No, they're not!"

Here it is, the shouting match. Coulson leans back, a bit shocked. She copies his gesture. 

"What do you want me to do, Skye?" he asks, softly, as if he would really do whatever she wants. That's not the thing at all. She doesn't want him to pile it all on her. It means nothing if he just does stuff for her.

"I've been reading a lot," she says, looking outside, the street lights throwing strange shapes through the trickle of water darting down her window. "About SHIELD's origins, now that all documents are declassified. SHIELD was born and five minutes later its founders were compromising, inviting ex-HYDRA operatives in. They couldn't know, of course and well, it's not like any of us could have done better. And that's scary, you know? That maybe, _right now_ , we don't know better."

 

**2:21**

The rain slows down, doesn't give up, but it becomes a light tapping on the glass. Ominous, or maybe Skye is just imagining it.

 

**2:31**

"You can leave the shift if you want," Coulson says, not looking at her. Because, yeah, that's what she meant. It doesn't matter that his voice is soft and strange, Skye can only feel more anger at the words. "I'll be fine on my own."

Skye feels something ugly rise from her stomach, her lungs. This is what she's been looking for.

"I don't want that," she pleads. "That's the opposite of what I want. You obviously haven't heard a word I've said."

Coulson pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

"I'm not interested in fighting with you anymore," he says.

"And I am?"

"Yes, Skye, you've been trying to start a fight with me for the last week."

Skye snorts. "Try more like the last month and a half."

 

**2:47**

"Skye. What's wrong?" he tries again, softer.

She can't tell exactly what is wrong. Just the general feeling that they shouldn't be doing this. A lot of this.

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"You've been talking a lot. Every night. About a lot of things. Telling stories about your childhood..."

Skye shrugs. "That's what I do, isn't it? Talk, talk, talk."

"No, you don't," he shakes his head. "People think you do, and you let them believe that version. But you don't really _talk_."

He notices things, too.

 

**4:10**

I can fix this, she tells herself.

She's trying. 

If there is a third option between letting CIA humilliate Coulson and letting a dangerous criminal go unpunished she is going to find it. She just needs more time. She and Fitz just need a little more time to catch the guy red-handed. She knows she can make the connection on the side of the Army but Coulson would never let her try anything without solid proof. And well, she remembers her hacktivist training, she knows what irrefutable proof is – she also knows the difference between what a judge will take as the truth and what the world at large will.

She can do this. She always could.

But she needs him to know why.

"Director..." she starts.

"What?" he turns to her, suspicious of her voice and he has every right to be.

"That word. It has changed everything."

"It doesn't have to. I don't want it to."

"That's it, isn't it? You are the Director. But what about what you want? Do you even want to be Director of SHIELD? Do you even think we should be organized again? Because I haven't heard you mention what _you_ think about this whole business."

"It is an honor and a duty, that's what I think," Coulson says. The words sound hollow and pathetic. For a moment Skye doesn't know this person.

"Wow, that's a company line if I ever heard one."

" _Skye_."

She would normally enjoy the way Coulson turns her name into a whole sentence, even in anger, but there's nothing normal about tonight.

"To hell with honor and duty. I thought you were done with those anyway. I thought _we_ were done with that."

He shifts in his seat and suddenly he is absurdly close, or maybe it's the car, but he's definitely invading her space. He looks confused by it, too, like he didn't expect to be so little room between him and Skye. They've been this close before, of course, but she finds him strangely big up close. He's not a big man but suddenly he seems to fill up all the space.

"You don't want me to be the Director. Is it that simple?"

"I don't want you to be Director. Not without asking, no."

He looks hurt – the last thing she has ever wanted to do in her life was her hurt this man. And yet here they are.

"You've been holding on to that one for a long time. Haven't you?" 

His jaw is set and he is staring at Skye very intently. She would normally see him thinking, making calculations in his mind. There is something raw in the way he's looking at her now. Like he's not thinking about anything at all. He doesn't look scary to her, but he does look imposing, and Skye-from-way-back might have been persuaded to shut up by the image. Or maybe she wouldn't. She can't remember many occasions when she didn't tell Coulson exactly what she was thinking.

"I know you deserve it and I know you _want_ to do a good job, that's not it. You came into your office with Fury and when you came back you were Director of SHIELD and you didn't even ask if we thought rebuilding SHIELD was a good idea, it was just happening," she says because yeah, she has been holding on to that one for a long time, for as long as she thought her silence was helping him. She was wrong. She has failed him. She should have said something earlier. She had her reasons, they all had. "And we let you, it's on us too. We were so happy to be alive and together, to be a proper team for the first time. A team without lies. And then you started making the ops and negotiating with the army and whoever. You started compromising."

"I'm responsible for this. I have to make sure it doesn't – there are so many people more qualified, so many people who deserve this, but I was given this task. I am responsible, not you, not the team. You're not the one who will go down in history..."

He stops, probably sensing that if he says the word "I" one more time Skye is going to get out of the car. His voice is a thread, sounding like it's about to snap. He's breathing heavily now and the expression on his face – she has only seen it one other time, in the snow, outside Providence base. It's not that she is impervious to it, but she is not going to stroke Coulson's ego just because he feels inadequate for this task.

"You are a leader," she tells him. "But lately you haven't been much of one. You've been more of a dictator."

"I'm sorry," he says, helpless, like a child who doesn't know what he is apologizing for.

Skye shakes her head.

She can still feel the cold of the rain clinging to her body. The smell of it. She can feel Coulson's body heat, still too close.

"I thought you were a person who could never, ever disappoint me," she says and it comes out like a whisper, something really sad and unintended. Skye herself didn't know she was going to say such a thing or that she really felt like that. When she realizes it's true her whole body goes cold and stiff.

Coulson reaches one hand towards her, fingertips almost making contact before Skye recoils and shakes him off. He stops the gesture but stays frozen in the movement, between his seat and hers, light going out of his eyes bit by bit as she talks.

"For me you were the guy who listened to me when I said Mike was a good man," Skye goes on, avoiding his eyes. "You were the person who gave me a second chance after I betrayed you. You were the one thing in my life I knew wasn't going to let me down. You were _A.C._ and you're not even that anymore."

Coulson finally leans back, stops invading her space, like he has been suddenly drained of all energy, all fight.

"People will always disappoint you, Skye," he tells her, in an ugly, resigned voice. "And you know that better than most of us."

"Yes," she says, feeling her mouth go dry. "And somehow I always manage to forget that fact. _Every_ time."

Coulson doesn't say anything else.

There isn't anything else to say between them.

 

**6:38**

"We have a job to do," he says, sounding so fucking calm.

Maybe he doesn't really mind, what she has said. All this time maybe it was just an illusion, that Coulson might care about her opinion at all.

"Yes," she says, finally talking to him like he were her boss. She doesn't need to call him _sir_ or _director_ , it's already in her tone. "And I intend to do it."

And she is not lying. That's _exactly_ what she intends to do, whether Coulson likes it or not.

 

**8:29**

The kitchen is only at half light so Skye jumps when suddenly May is besides her, materializing out of the darkness. May is good at that but she wouldn't have surprised her like this if Skye hadn't been so deep in thought.

"Wouldn't you normally be in bed right now?" May asks after she lets the other woman catch her breath.

Skye sulking over some cereal she's not really eating, she's just drawing circles with the spoon.

"Normally," she says, half-assed.

May gives her an inquiring look. She looks fresh-faced, right out of the shower after her morning exercises, healthy and ready to take on anything or anyone who comes her way. She looks exactly the opposite of how Skye is feeling. Skye very seldom wishes she were another person but if she could – 

"Something went wrong with the mission?" May asks.

"No. The mission went exactly as _the mission_ was supposed to do."

May takes a seat next to her. She takes a moment to draw her shoulders back, to read the signs on Skye's face.

"Did you and Coulson had an argument?"

Skye's head shoots up, surprised by the perfect bullseye. "Why do you say that?"

May does this thing where she snorts without making an snorting sound or even the movement, you just know she's mentally snorting. "Because I passed him on my way here and he had a face I'm closely acquainted with. There is only one person round here who can provoke it."

"Oh well I'm so sorry if I have slightly annoyed our sacrosanct Director."

May tilts her head, almost _comprehending_.

"That's not what I was saying and you know it."

"I know that," Skye replies, giving her SO a kind smile of appreciation. You can't ever bullshit May and this is a good thing. "Hey, quick question, if I wasn't here to annoy Coulson... you'd make sure he didn't maneuver himself into a corner, right?"

She puts a spoon that is more sugar than actual food in her mouth and tries to feel a bit better. It doesn't really work but hey, sugar is sugar, it's never a bad thing.

May leans back in her seat, looking suspicious. "Why wouldn't you be here to annoy Coulson?"

Skye waves it off. "No reason. It was a hypothetical. _Very_ hypothetical."

An arched eyebrow but then May lets her off the hook for once, which she appreciates. Skye knows it's too early in the morning to make any life-altering decisions, so it's too early for May to try to talk her out of them. She does the next best thing.

"I think you need to come with me to the gym now and go a few rounds. Get rid of all that energy that has you stuck inside of your own head _and_ not sleeping."

"So... your going to help me go to sleep by kicking my ass repeadly?"

"I am."

"Okay, that sounds great, actually."

And it does. Because if Skye has learned something from getting her ass kicked repeateadly by May every morning is that the ass kicking blissfully never leaves room for thinking about anything else.

And right now blissfully _not thinking_ about anything else is exactly what Skye needs.

She wonders if it has stopped raining.


	6. alone

**saturday**

**17:11**

Rental cars really have their own scent.

Not CIA-provided cars, real rentals.

They have the scent of the hundred people who came before, and the hundred cleaning products used to try and mask that fact. It sounds gross but Skye doesn't think it's gross. Rental cars feel like they have a history, and at the same time they are so aseptic, so anonymous. Anonymous is good, Skye knows this. Or she used to, anyway.

In any case it's a good, comforting smell, even if it's not the same as with her van – her van ended up smelling like her, after two years (rather than its previous owners, whom Skye once called friends and now she barely remembers their names), and also like the hundreds of greasy takeout dinners she ate inside of it, the poor thing. It was really difficult to air it to kill the smell, though, specially in winter, when Skye didn't really feel like sliding the doors wide open, she had enough to deal with, what with the busted heating system that somehow Skye was always to broke to afford to fix. Now that she has a semi-regular income maybe she should get on that. She wonders if she'll ever drive her old van again. She misses that smell – that particular combination of her own scent and a million nights of sweet & sour chicken.

But this is good, she thinks. This anonymous, unassuming car parked outside the house of a bad guy, rented with her own money.

This is more like it, she thinks. This is what she is used to. Being alone, sure, but also making her own decisions, not having to listen what anyone else has to say when they are clearly wrong and acting like asses.

 

**18:09**

Fitz had spent the better part of the morning talking her through how the thing was supposed to work, when it works, if it works. Skye had come to him as soon as Coulson had announced that the operation had been called off.

Skye still has her doubts. Even if Fitz invents something that can crack such a security system... how long before the next guy implements new barriers, how long before they have to go through this whole process again? This is something that she should be used to, as a hacker, this spiral, but before joining SHIELD, before finding out what sort of horrifying behaviours these people were trying to cover up with advance tech like this, she hadn't really stopped to think how absurd the whole endless cycle was.

"Don't do anything stupid. Okay?" Fitz had told her. It wasn't a throwaway line, there was real concern. She understand that, coming from Fitz, directed at her. "I mean, _dangerous_. Stupid is fine, don't do anything dangerous."

"This is not –" she tried to reassure him. _This is not like last time_. "I know what I'm doing."

"Mmm."

Skye grabbed the gadget from his hands. "You're okay with me taking this, right? You get why we have to do this, why I'm going."

Fitz nodded.

"I get it."

It's still unnerving to deal with, this new quieter version of Fitz, the quietness more than the evidence of his injuries. 

 

**19:20**

At some point Coulson shows up, which is not entirely surprising, tapping at the glass of her window and she would normally like that gesture, but not today. And he still looks angry, which not surprising at all. What is a bit more disconcerting is that he has brought Trip along, like he thought he needed back-up against Skye. Trip doesn't look too thrilled to be here, either, but he is stoic enough that he wears it well.

Coulson opens the driver's door and Skye complies, climbing out. Sure, they can have a showdown in the middle of the street in the middle of the afternoon. She sees that Coulson is wearing one his darkest dark blue suits and that's never a good signal.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asks her.

"I'm completing my mission. _Mine_. You said I could call the shots so here I am calling the shots."

Coulson doesn't roll his eyes but almost. He said she wasn't a kid but Skye knows she is acting like one.

"I am uncalling the shots," he says. "This is no longer an official mission. You could get arrested for harassing a civilian."

"Do you think I don't have a Plan B and a Plan C?" she argues. She's reckless, not irresponsible. And she has taken all the neccessary measures so that if something goes wrong it doesn't hit anyone else. If Coulson cared to check her official status right now he'd be surprised to discover that for the last six hours Skye hasn't been an agent of New SHIELD or any other organization, according to the records; if he looked closer he'd know that this protocol only lasts for 48 hours, and then it reverts to its former state, leaving no trace she was ever gone. It's not like she wants to be unemployed for good – Coulson might be _impossible_ to talk to right now, but she is not giving back her badge, not yet. She could tell Coulson all this, if he showed enough curiosity as to what exactly Skye is doing here. Instead of just telling her to leave. "That's why I'm here – I have your backs. I make sure we are covered so that we can go and do what we should."

"We can't be impatient, I'm –" he lowers his voice, throwing a glance to the passer-bys. " _Skye_. I'm tired of having this conversation with you."

She crosses her arms, leaning back against the car. "We finally agree on something."

"Come back with us." He does look fucking tired, that's true.

" _No_."

She notices Trip looking away, swaying his body again from the two of them, not wanting any part of this.

"This is just you being stubborn," Coulson declares, gritting his teeth.

"No. This is just me doing my job."

"Your job should include listening to what I say."

" _Wow_ , no." She shakes her head. "My job is to catch the bad guys. There's a bad guy. Right there. Come on, _Coulson_. Why don't you stay and help me catch him?"

She is surpised when she can see him hesitate, actually consider it, like he is finally on the verge of _listening_. His face betraying that he really, really wants to. Something like warmth spreads all over Skye at that face but Coulson pulls it back almost in the same heartbeat. It's like a slap across her face.

Instead he says: "Skye, come back to the base with us."

"Yeah, good luck with that." She snorts.

He wraps his fingers around Skye's elbow and tries to pull her away from the car. The grip is not tight at all but it is uncharacteristic enough to be alarming.

"Get your hands off me," she says between her teeth, calmly, chewing the words in a way she knows is going to hit him.

Coulson pulls away immediately. He looks at his own hand, appalled.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to–"

Skye tries to stare him down but he is the one avoiding her eyes right now.

"Maybe you should, come back with us," Trip offers, helpfully picking on the charged mood.

"Skye..." Coulson tries, and she can see the effort it's taking him to harden his expression in front of her.

This is not what they are supposed to be doing, she thinks for the millionth time. Standing here fighting each other. And there's all this tension Skye knows it's not entirely about the mission, and it's not entirely Coulson's fault. She has been trying to make him mad for more than one reason. But this? This is not helping anyone, much less the innocent and helpless. There has to be a way for Coulson to understand this, to understand that this is _too early_ , that he hasn't been Director for two months, there will be time for him to be cautious and compromise. Right they should be reckless and righteous, because what's the point of laying the foundations like this. Coulson said he wanted to do it right, this time, that he was afraid of the same old mistakes. _Right_ doesn't look like this. Skye knows there has to be combination of words she can say to make him understand she's just looking out for him here, that it's not just her being stubborn – well, part of it is – it's also about being protective.

Just because she is angry at him doesn't mean she wants to see him humilliated, internationally humilliated. That's why she is staying. That's what Coulson doesn't get.

"Is this how you started the first time around?" Skye asks him, and though the question sounds calm enough she can feel an ugly throb inside her head, because she knows what she is going to say. "You were one of the good guys in the beginning and then you started giving in, compromising inch by inch, and before you knew it you were in charge of Project TAHITI?"

Skye draws a deep breath while she waits for his face to register her words.

There it is.

Yep, Coulson hates her. Which is just fine, she pretty much hates herself right now.

Except it's not really hatred in his face, it's something else. Something much, much worse.

"Okay, stay, if that's what you think you– you should do," Coulson says in a quiet, very quiet voice, too quiet for how shaken he looks, before he turns around and starts walking away from the car.

Skye doesn't watch him leave. She just stares at the ground for a moment, the well-cared-for and clean sidewalk betraying the status of the neighborhood. It's almost surprising when she realizes Trip is still here, and close. She puts on a cheerful expression before looking up at him. He doesn't seem that alarmed or worried about the scene he has just witnessed. And they say nothing fazes _her_. Skye is also strangely comforted by the fact that he hasn't immediately followed his boss, their boss, away from her.

"Are you going to be okay out here alone?" Trip asks her, his half-smile cocked in that way Skye has learned is not levity but protection.

Skye nods: "Sure."

"Fitz said to ask you if you brought enough snacks."

"Yep, all covered."

"What are you going to do if you need a bathroom break?" Trip asks, frowning at the perspective.

That almost makes her genuinely smile, because maybe this is the best moment for that. She returns his smirk: "That's classified."

Trip looks worried but willing to let her be. That's all she wants, really. Well, that and – 

"Can you tell Coulson –?" she stops him when he is about to turn around. She sees Trip's arched eyebrow. "Nothing. Forget it."

"Take care," Trip finishes, rather uncharacteristically, but at least the tone of his voice is not ominous.

Skye wonders what the others think about her going off the rails like this. If they could see the way she has treated Coulson these last couple of days. What they'd say. She knows Fitz is in her corner but perhaps only because he wants to see his invention work and be used for a noble cause. Or maybe he just _is_ in her corner because Fitz has grown up a lot these last couple of months. What will May say about this? If Skye keeps it up longer maybe she'll come and get her, as her SO. Now that there's no chance Coulson will ever come and knock at her window again. 

 

**20:31**

The truth is, Skye regretted as soon as the words left her mouth.

The truth is, she knows it's not true.

(The truth is she _hopes_ it's not true)

The truth is she wishes she could apologize, like right now this very moment, but he's gone and she is stuck in this car and okay, _she is_ stubborn.

 

**21:03**

Every twenty minutes Fitz's high tech hardware emits a soft beep.

Every twenty minutes Skye is closer to finding out if she has been stubborn for nothing, or if she had been right all along.

She is going to measure the time in stretches of twenty minutes, not hours. Hours is too big a concept today, and she is impatient, Coulson was dead right on that, and she can't start doing her thing until Fitz's thing finishes doing its thing. She doesn't like standing still.

 

**21:55**

She's done this, pretty much exactly _this_ , many times, before SHIELD, before Coulson.

This is actually what she had been doing, when SHIELD found her.

She had been on Centipede's trail for months. Compiling evidence, scraps of conversation recorded illegaly, following the money in the purchases of bizarre medical items that picked her curiosity, parking her van outside where she knew one their laboratories should be. It was such a covert operation – Skye couldn't find any link to any government organization, just private influx of funds – that she knew they must have less than noble purposes.

Even before Centipede she already her little map of secret SHIELD bases of operations – minor ones, okay, mostly bureaucratic centers where SHIELD processed paperwork and communications. She doesn't remember when she found out SHIELD existed, because it was never common knowledge – now everybody has heard about it, sure, but there was a time where the average person on the street wouldn't know what to do with that acronym, even if they had already knew the real story behind Iron Man. More alarmingly Skye has trouble remembering if the first time she was aware of SHIELD's existence was when she saw their logo on her redacted file, or if she already knew of a super secret government agency tasked with dealing with weird crap. It's all so tangled up, her own life and SHIELD, that she can't really tell. And now there's nothing of that – there's New SHIELD, and _Director Coulson_ , and it's not worse, of course, but it's not really the same.

Skye is back where she started; alone in a car, spying on the bad guys.

 

**22:14**

_What if you are wrong?_

 

**23:01**

Hey, at least she doesn't have to worry about what other people might say about her snacking habits.

She has brought all the toxic starches she could think of, and candy. She thought about buying chocolate too, but for some reason she didn't. Well, those Jalapeño Flavored Chips are not going to eat themselves and who's here to stop Skye?

To her that's the actual meaning of _freedom_.

She can hear Coulson's voice earlier that week: _Do you always eat like this? I'm amazed you're not dead_. Well, the joke is on you, Director, because now she is going to eat whatever she wants, all night.

She takes a bite of the chip and realizes she's not really that hungry.

 

**23:42**

It's harder staying awake when you are alone.

It didn't use to be like that for Skye but maybe she is rusty. Maybe she's been domesticated. She used to be able to stay up for whole days writing code, and competing with other hackers. She used to keep the craziest schedules, sleeping during the day, working at her computer at night, forgetting what the natural ticking of her body clock sounded like.

It's not that late, even. She's just really bored and really _exhausted_.

She's become softer, that's what it is.

Being around people all the time, keeping to strict timetables, sleeping in proper beds. Having expectations of people again. She used to be stronger than this, and she needs to be that person again, if she is going to take this guy down, if she is going to expose the CIA's methods.

But right now a proper bed sounds so nice. Any kind of horizontal surface does, actually, even May's training mats, which always smell of feet and she knows quite well because she spends most of her sessions with May lying down on them, face pressed to the material.

Staying awake used to be so much easier. It doesn't matter that she didn't really get any sleep last night, or this morning, or whatever, because how could she. She wonders if Coulson slept at all. No, not good, she tells herself, prioritizing the thing she definitely needs to stop thinking about.

She taps her fingers on the wheel, trying to give herself some momentum, to shake herself out of it.

She thinks about the stupid, peaceful face Coulson has when he is asleep, how the lines on his forehead seemed smoother with sleep, and how she never imagined she'd get to see that. No, she stops herself, don't think about that.

She takes a sip of her vanilla coke. It's disgusting, of course, but this is a trick of the trade; she learned a long time ago that disgusting drinks keep you awake better than delicious ones. If Coulson were here she could tell him, she bets she doesn't know about this.

 _No_ , she stops herself. _Quit that, Skye_.

 

**23:59**

She is alone again, and that shouldn't be surprising.


	7. this time around

**sunday**

 

**0:29**

"As long as you don't start talking to yourself we're cool, Skye, we're cool."

 

**1:08**

She didn't think it was going to be this eerie; keeping guard so late. Again, it's only because she hasn't done this in a long time. And this is a good neighborhood, unlike so many where she used to park her van. She should be fine, even on her own. Even on her own again.

This week has messed her up, she realizes this. She already got used to this scenario, but with Coulson in it. She already got used to it being this late and the both of them inside the car, talking or not talking, eating, or maybe just looking out of their windows, being with someone who has your back, always. She doesn't have that right now, any of that, and the street outside starts to look like something slightly threatening, slightly overwhelming.

But she also remembers that it's an old reflex, being scared when alone at night in a car. Even when that used to be her whole life – even when she lived in the van, habit never really managed to make it go away, the permanent vigilance, the anxiety. The knowledge that if something ever happened to her no one would know or help. There's a reason why she has become such a light sleeper in the last few years.

 

**1:39**

She is so concentrated on not being anxious that she almost jumps when there's a knock on the glass by her side.

" _Jesus_ ," she mutters once she's recovered, her heart going fast and painful. She takes a moment to roll down her window. "Jesus. Don't do that. Did you want to scare me to death?"

"Sorry," Coulson says, and he smiles shyly.

He is smiling.

And Skye finds herself smiling too, not knowing when that started, because _he came back_ and that's – that's never happened to her before.

"Can I come in?" he asks.

Skye looks at the hour. "Did it really take you six hours to realize you were wrong and I was right? _Really_?"

He doesn't seem to take offense at that. He doesn't even make an effort to deny it's the case. He shakes his head.

"Of course not. I was doing some other stuff."

"What other stuff?"

"I brought you something," he says, producing their usual thermos and giving it to Skye.

She holds it in her hand, taking a moment to understand. Possibly understand. Coulson doesn't really overlook one single detail, does he. She lifts her head and gives him a knowing look.

"Tell me this is soup," she says, feeling the warmth under her fingers. Coulson just smiles. "Okay, you can get in."

She opens the door and climbs out of the driver's seat to leave him room. Coulson hesitates.

"Are you sure you don't want this seat?" he asks.

"Yes. I'm tired of being at the wheel for so long."

He climbs in, taking a moment to make himself comfortable in this new car, frowning at the obvious downgrade in quality from the CIA vehicles. Skye wants to protests – this is the best she can do with her own money. 

_This is more like it_ , Skye thinks anyway, Coulson by her side. This is more like it, she thinks, because she is not longer alone.

"Thank god you're here," she tells him and he gives her _a look_ but she gives him a cheeky grin. "I really need a bathroom break."

 

**3:15**

She has printed some emails for him.

"There are some mentions of you," she says.

"About me?" He frowns, taking them from her hands. It's okay, she knows what they say. She has been turning them over and over in her mind for a couple of days.

"That guy Talbot does not like you at all," Skye comments. "I mean they don't mention you by name and I only have the CIA side of the conversation but it's easy to guess who they're referring to."

"It was all a game to them," Coulson says, catching up. "And we were playing the patsy."

"Well, _I_ told you that. The army is going to grab this guy's tech and then they are going to frame him – well, not frame him because he's a really bad guy, but they are going to blow it all open. Be the heroes of the day and blame SHIELD for not catching him ourselves."

"That's why you didn't want to tell me why you were doing."

"You were being so weird – and that's fine, I don't want to go back to that. But I didn't know if you were going to share the stuff I told you with the CIA, and if they knew that would complicate things for us big time. Fitz needed the time and I... needed to keep you in the dark."

"I guess I earned that distrust," he says flatly – she would prefer if he were being a bit more self-pitying than that. This is sadder. Skye didn't mean to do this.

"No, no, I'm – I think I get what you said about Fury, how he became so paranoid. I should have told you."

Coulson looks thoughtful but not hurt, which is okay.

"We should do something about this anyway," he say.

"Absolutely. We can't do anything to stop this technology from being out there in the world, but I was thinking, when we cracked his system, I could send the specs to my old Rising Tide guard, at least people will know the Army is buying this stuff." He has a strange expression on his face. "What? What's wrong?"

"You can take the girl out of the Rising Tide but you can't take the Rising Tide out of the girl."

" _Good_."

 

**4:04**

He pours the soup for them both.

After the snacks and the vanilla coke this stuff smells positively heavenly, or at least it does to Skye. She admits to slight bias in this matter, though. The scent fills the car in a moment. She makes a kind of obscene noise when she takes the first sip. Coulson raises one eyebrow at that. He is never going to let her live this one down.

"If the CIA and the Army put too much heat on you you could always run away, become a professional chef," she says.

"Let's not exaggerate," Coulson tells her.

She laughs. She wasn't suggesting he could get a job in a Michelin star place; just a little joint where he could live an anyonymous life. She can and can't imagine that.

"Well, you have a back-up career here. So, you are free to screw up this one you have now."

"At least you acknowledge I am risking my career just by being here." 

He says it with humor but Skye knows what he is risking just by being here with her.

"That was never my intention, you have to believe that."

His face softens. "That's fine. I wouldn't do it for just anyone."

Skye doesn't know what to do with _that_. So she backtracks.

"Still. Professional cook. It's important knowing that, that no matter how bad things get, there's always running away."

She is getting a bit personal here. She didn't intend to. It might be the soup.

"Not sure I would ever know how to," Coulson admits. She guesses he hasn't had much practice with the running away thing.

"Our back-up identities are solid."

"Am I still Pablo Jimenez?"

"Of course."

"I wish you would pick another name."

"Well, boss, tough luck."

"Why _Pablo Jimenez_?"

"Because I thought it would be funny."

"It is."

She looks down at the cup of soup in her hand. There's barely any now.

"Haven't you ever fantasized about being someone else?" Skye asks, not looking up.

"Like Pablo Jimenez? No."

She shrugs. "Well, I guess you wouldn't."

"No, what I mean is I never saw the point, personally – whatever is wrong with me will still be there even if I become another person."

That's a very Coulson answer and she wants to ask what he thinks is so wrong with him. She bites her lower lip.

"What if what is wrong is the world, not you?"

"I guess... there's always trying to change the world."

"That's easy to say but... it's not so easy to do," she looks up. "Imagine you are thirteen. How do you change the world?"

There's a beat. He holds her gaze calmly. Skye's chest aches at the idea that he might have some intimation of what she's talking about.

"I don't know, Skye, I don't know."

"Sometimes the only thing you can do is change your name."

She watches him watching her face. Studying her words. Trying to get it. She wonders if he can, if their experiences are just too different.

"Okay," he says after a moment. "Pablo Jimenez can stay."

 

**4:53**

There is still an elephant in the car, she knows this. And she doesn't want to hurt him any more than she already has by bringing it up but – 

But the car is small enough as it is.

"Look, I'm just – I'm glad you are here," she tells Coulson. He turns his head, confused at her non-sequitur. "I don't particularly feel in the mood for any big epic apology or –"

"No, I think a big, epic apology is in order," he comments.

Skye sits up, cross-legged in her seat.

"From me?"

Coulson narrows his eyes at her. " _No_. From me."

"You don't need to..."

She wasn't lying before. She doesn't need his apology. The fact that he is here right now, in this car, with her, means he understood what she was trying to say – and that was all she wanted. It was never about winning an argument. And it definitely isn't about getting Coulson to tell her he is sorry. Or about her telling him she's sorry. Though Skye knows she probably should.

"I've thought about what you said," Coulson tells her.

"What I said was – no, you definitely shouldn't think about that. _Ever_. You should forget it. Every word."

"No," he says. "You were right."

"No, I wasn't. I was the opposite of –"

Coulson smiles helplessly. 

"Let me finish? Please?" Skye nods. "I thought about what you said. It didn't take much, because it's my greatest fear, too. That whoever I became before it started like this, that I'm just repeating the pattern."

"You've always been a good guy," she tells him.

"Being a good guy is not enough. You have to do good things. I know some of the things I've done, some of the things now you know about me, they are –" he doesn't so much struggle with the next word as he pauses to make sure he is choosing the accurate one. "Unforgivable. And _you are right_ , this is how it starts, you make that first move, you compromise that first inch, and then you refuse to see you've done it. That's how it was for me the first time around."

"Coulson..."

"But this is different," he says, a strange light in his eyes. "It has to be. Because the first time around I didn't have you to keep me in line."

Skye feels the heat in her cheeks; she looks away, embarrassed.

"I think I went well past the limit of keeping you in line and I ventured into the arena of just being a massive ass. And cruel, too."

"I wasn't listening," he says, in a tone Skye doesn't like that much. There's also this dimmed, gray expression in his face. "I wouldn't have listened. It worked."

She doesn't want him to go any deeper than that.

"Okay, fine, but. Let's conclude the apologies," Skye decides for the both of them.

She offers her hand, almost jokingly, for a handshake.

His face lights up a bit as he takes her hand in his. He even smiles at the offer. He shakes it in the same humorous spirit in which she has offered it. It's nice. Friendly.

He holds on to her hand for a moment, lingering beyond a regular handshake. Skye can feel the rough skin of his thumb caressing the heel of her hand gently. He lets her go only little by little, fingertips brushing across her palm very slowly.

 

**5:24**

"So it does work," he points out, her laptop already somewhat functional, if still navigating all the interference.

"It has been working," Skye reminds him. "I'm not good at this stuff at all, I'm just software girl, but whatever this guy is using to mask his signal it must be impressive if it has taken Fitz a week to figure things out."

"We don't have the means he has," Coulson reminds her. 

He moves closer to see the computer screen. Not that he is going to understand much, mainly because not much is going on right now. He leans closer and Skye notices he smells kind of clean, and realizes for the first time he has changed his suit since last evening and he must have showered too.

"The bad guys always have more means," she says, sighing. "Unless you're Tony Stark."

"How long do you need?" 

Skye picks up the laptop and places it on the back seat. Once they are on this step Skye doesn't really need to be monitoring the exploit.

"Half an hour, more or less. It depends – I don't know what kind of security he has in place, once we unblock his signal. I wish I could be more accurate."

"I wish I could be of more use."

"That's okay," Skye says. She could do this alone, she knows that. She's happy she doesn't have to. "You almost got run over by a car. I'm just typing stuff into my laptop"

"And I made dinner."

"And you made dinner."

 

**5:42**

The street has gone completely quiet.

The car has also gone completely quiet. So much that they can hear the light buzzing of the computer, struggling with its task. It's a noise Skye has always found comforting.

It's that moment in the night when she feels simutaneously very awake and deeply surreal. She is turned on her side, starting at Coulson with her cheek against the back seat.

He is staring right back at her, not saying a single word.

This has been going on for a bit.

"What?" Skye finally asks. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

He is looking at her _like that_. He defnitely is. She is not imagining things.

"I'm sorry."

"Uh?"

" _I'm sorry_."

"Hey, hey, we said no more apologies."

"Not for that. Not for..." He pauses, looks at the wheel for a moment, then back at Skye. "I'm sorry I disappointed you."

She looks away for a second, briefly ashamed at being reminded of her own words. But she meant it then.

"It's okay," she says, and he can't know but it really is.

"No, it's not."

"I'm sure I've disappointed you plenty of times."

"Skye, I'm serious."

He looks pained about it. Somehow almost angry.

Skye sits up a bit.

"Okay. But. You came back." He gives her a questioning look. She doesn't mean to say more than it's _safe_ between them, she wants to keep herself carefully concealed, protected. But she wants to tell him this. "Yes, there are plenty of people who have disappointed me before. But no one, _none_ , have ever come back to me and tried to fix it. You are the first one. The only one. And I know you can't understand what that means to me but _wow_ – it is big, let me tell you that. But don't let me run my mouth like this."

Coulson is staring at her with a half-stunned half-alarmed look.

She gives him a little shrug, a little sad smile.

He moves slowly, but it happens too fast for Skye.

Coulson kisses her.

Coulson is kissing her.

Coulson stops kissing her.

Coulson has kissed her.

Skye freezes.

She has frozen so obviously that he has pulled back immediately, leaving as much space as he can between them.

"I thought this was what you wanted," he says, his tone more surprised than anything else.

Oh, fuck, Skye thinks because that's not – 

"No, it is," she hurries to set him straight, panicked. "Believe me, this is _exactly_ what I want. But I also know this the way I normally ruin things for myself and you might not believe it for how I've acted the last couple of days but... you are too important for me to lose. So my fears won out for a second."

"If you don't want to –"

"That's not why I said it. Just – give me a moment here."

Coulson does just that.

She can't believe she needs to give herself a silent pep talk to kiss this man but apparently she does. Coulson would probably laugh at her – except he wouldn't. That thought brings her a lot of calm actually. She wants to do this. She just wasn't sure she could.

"I'm also thinking I'm glad I didn't eat too many of those Jalapeño chips," she blurts out.

Coulson chuckles a bit, but he also looks like he couldn't care less about that. That sort of does it for her.

She kisses him.

It takes Coulson no time at all to react, to open his mouth and give her full access; it takes him no time at all to tangle his hand in her hair and pull her closer. He is not messing around, but then again neither is Skye. 

He tastes like the soup he made and they both ate together tonight and warmth spreads through Skye's body, pooling at the bottom of her stomach.

Professional, professional, she thinks.

"What?" Coulson asks, pulling away just a bit. 

Skye can feel his labored breath on her face. She doesn't want to stay away from that mouth for too long but now she realizes his other hand is splayed her hip. She is dying to explore this new development.

" _Very_ professional," she says, bringing their mouths together again.

She lets him explore hers as much as Coulson lets her explore his. Her hands fly to his neck, one thumb drawing the line of his jaw as he opens his mouth further and if there's an opposite of being professional it's the way he does that, and the way she moans into the gesture. She can't get that word out of her head, though, and she realizes she's been unfair to Coulson, working her way to this moment.

She breaks the kiss.

"I have a confession to make," she says.

"Yes?"

"When you asked me the first night... I didn't tell you the whole truth. The way I selected the teams for this mission... _it was_ a bit out of selfishness."

"I know," he tells her. "And I could tell you that you were being _unprofessional_. But then I'd be a hypocrite."

He grabs her head in his hands, kissing her before he even finishes the sentence, biting lightly at her lower lip.

At some point he is definitely invading her seat, pushing her against the passenger's door. His left hand darts up from her hip to her side, feeling the shape of her ribcage under her t-shirt. Skye takes his hand, fingers entiwned with his, moving it over her breast. Coulson groans into her mouth but he doesn't act surprised. He cups his fingers carefully around her breast, just as she is showing him how tom following her rhythm.

At the back of her mind, and vaguely, there's something that reminds her that they are in the middle of a stakeout, a very important mission, and that the computer is going to finish its job soon. The buzzing of blood in her ears makes it impossible for her to listen to that something for too long. 

She holds Coulson closer, hands everywhere, wanting _everything_. She doesn't even notice she is doing it, what with being very distrated with the making out and what Coulson is doing with his fingers over her chest, but her hand snakes down from his chest to his stomach, stopping to rest over his belt and his lap. He bucks against her touch and that's definitely the nail of the coffin for _professional_ here because Skye can feel he's hard. She arches an eyebrow and he can see it, even though he hasn't stopped kissing her. He groans into her mouth like a challenge, like he means to tell her _Well, what did you expect?_ And Skye kind of smiles a smug smile against him and takes his hand and moves it from her breast and down between her legs. Okay, he can't tell that it's the same for her, but he gets what she is trying to imply here.

This is perfect, she thinks, as Coulson doesn't miss a bit and presses the palm of his hand against her inner thigh. Perfect. And that's why she has to stop it.

It's hard, though, _technically_ , because right now they are quite tangled and Coulson is almost invading the passenger seat completely, pressing his whole body against her side, breaking, she's sure, several rules of car rental protocol, nevermind SHIELD.

But she manages to slow them down to a halt, bit by bit. When she lifts her hands from his body Coulson senses something is wrong. He makes a little hurt sound but he stops kissing her as soon as he notices.

Then he pulls back, his hands slowly letting go of her leg and her hair. He doesn't completely go back to his seat, but he leaves her room. For a moment she wants to look at him, nothing else; clothes a real mess and hair a bit of a mess and lips thoroughtly kissed and red-ish from Skye's enthusiam.

Coulson just stares at her in confusion.

"I'm sorry," she says. Which is the worst opening gambit she could have chosen because from the expression on Coulson's face he thinks she means to stop what they are doing for good.

"It's fine. You don't have to –"

Skye shakes her head. This time she is the one climbing into his space, holding his head in her hands and kissing him. She means to be sweet with him, but the kiss is not that innocent. She breaks it off quickly or else she would never be able to.

"Okay," she steadies herself with a deep breath, back in the passeneger's seat. "I'm probably going to hate myself for this later but... can we slow down?" He nods. "It's just that I've been in these clothes for at least twelve hours and I must smell _charming_ and... as much as they idea of groping my boss in a rented car is really tempting, don't get me wrong... I want the full experience."

He looks even more confused after that. "The full experience."

"The full A.C. experience."

"I thought I wasn't A.C. anymore," he comments and it's not – he's not even teasing her. He looks sad about it.

"No, he's still there." She reaches her hand out to him, carefully and fondly resting her fingers over his heart. "Somewhere in here, there he is."

Coulson stares at her for a moment, the unreadable expression of being simultaneously baffled and touched by her words. He raises his own hand, not breaking eye contact, his fingers surely finding hers with a light touch, then holding on to them in a light grip. _Wow_ , Skye thinks, because they were basically feeling each other up just a moment ago but this feels a lot sexier to her for some reason. There's this really intimate way in which Coulson is lacing their fingers together and Skye had forgotten how that felt like – it had been like this with Miles, but it had taken them both a while to get there. Skye knows she is not great at intimacy and something about the speed at which it is happening between them here makes her dizzy. Maybe it's because Coulson knows her so well and they have been... _a lot of things_ to each other before they have been this.

"What do you want?" he asks in a whisper.

"I don't know," Skye admits. She hasn't been as bold as to imagine she had to have a plan. "I guess... Silly dates. Fooling around in every corner of the base. Taking our time with each other. Whatever you can come up with, which I'm sure will be _spectacular_. I trust you on this."

Coulson draws a long, heavy breath. "Be careful, Skye. That's how people end up disappointing you."

"I don't care," she says, feeling brave all of the sudden. "I have to take that risk."

Coulson agrees silently.

"And well..." she adds, throwing a glance across the street. "Right now we have work to do."

"Yes."

But Coulson just leans into her again, startling her a bit, and places a soft, open-mouthed kiss on the curve of her neck.

"Fine, work," he repeats.

Skye is about to grab her laptop but then she thinks better of it; she pushes herself against him one more time and gives him a suprise kiss on the cheek, quick and teasing. She looks smug after doing that. And excited like a high schooler fooling around.

There is still the vertigo of what the hell they are going to do know, the vertigo of this is too big. But there's also that bit of edge taken off, the reassurance that at least now she knows Coulson wants her. Coulson _wants_ her. This is something more or less empirical, she reflects, and she remembers how amazing it felt, to have the proof of his interest pressed against the palm of her hand.

"What?" he asks, noticing her expression.

She gestures towards his groin, as uncrudely as she can manage, which isn't much.

"I'm sorry. Do you need to –?"

He chuckles. It's a weird sound, even in context. "I'm a grown man. I'll be okay."

Fuck him, he is not going to embarrass her, Skye thinks with fondness.

"I have to be honest with you, Director," she tells him. "This stakeout is about the longest relationship I've had in a while."

"We'll be okay about that, too."

 

**6:49**

He lets her work in peace, making himself as unintrusive as he can.

He throws some quick glances her way, but mostly he is checking the street, or curiously leafing through the magazines she has brought with her – general knowledge and history magazines, Skye likes those things. Coulson doesn't fidget or shifts in his seat and at times, for a second, Skye forgets he's there, she's that absorbed in what she is doing.

"You can talk to me if you want," she says, not looking at him, but smirking out of the corner of her mouth. "What I'm doing is mostly muscle memory, and I'm very good at multi-task."

"I wouldn't want to distract you."

She turns her face a bit, quirking her eyebrow, thinking: _You are_ a distraction. Testing the water of whatever, new and untried, is between them. Coulson smiles warmly at her, like he can tell what she means, and the test doesn't go too badly, she has to admit.

"There was this challenge we used to like," she tells him, without tearing her eyes from the screen. "We would pick the loudest club we knew and the toughest target we could think of and then we would get absolutely smashed before even starting the hack. What I mean is – I'm good at tuning out the noise."

He nods.

Then a shiver runs down Skye's spine, because she suddenly remembers that the last time someone watched her work while she attempted a hack was Ward. And the last thing she wants to be thinking about is that. She can't help it – for a moment she feels the panic of being back in the booth in that restaurant, the knowledge that no matter what she did she was probably going to get killed anyway. They have come and gone, these little breathless heart-thumping moments, in the last couple of months since it all went down. She is normally alone when it happens, when for split of a second she forgets she actually made it of the plane alive, when she wakes up feeling the pull of ghost handcuffs around her wrist or the ghost touch of Ward's hand on hers. 

She can feel Coulson's eyes on her, but if he notices something off in her expression he doesn't comment on it. Either way she's grateful.

Her fingers haven't stopped typing, though.

 

**7:30**

In the end they have plenty to pin on this guy.

They have more than enough. 

That was the idea and Skye is _proud_ , but she's also a bit sad it's all over.

"Since we are getting this illegally I don't think we can bring him to trial for conspiring to run you over with a car. But I bet this is good leverage. With the CIA and the Army. We only have to worry about the NSA finding out I used their intel. But it's me, so we don't have to worry."

Coulson agrees. "I'm sorry we can't do anything about this technology."

"It's okay. I don't think I can get Fitz to give up on his patent rights – at least not without him complaining about my socialist leanings but. It's a good thing we know the system can be cracked."

It's always a good thing to know that, she thinks. Then again she says nothing because she also doesn't want Coulson to complain about her socialist leanings.

"We should call the team," he says casually, but then he gives Skye a charged look.

She sighs. She has this irrational fear that this car is a bubble and as soon as they step out of it whatever happened between them tonight, or this week, is going to disappear.

She wants to tell him to wait.

Instead: "We should."

 

**7:43**

Fitz is with Trip when they call him; Skye uploads whatever she could get (which is everything) to SHIELD's server.

There's much profuse admiration that Skye still has to bestow upon Fitz and his invention but she can feel Coulson's impatient glare as she starts doing so, so for the time being she cuts the gratitude short.

"Do you need to be picked up, sir?" Trip asks.

Skye and Coulson look at each other. They are on the middle of the street, the neighborhood is waking up and it looks like it will be an unfairly nice, sunny sunday today. Skye sighs. She guesses this job is a neverending thing.

"No," Coulson says into the phone, surprising her. "We are taking the rest of the morning off."

"Sir?" That's Fitz's voice.

Skye studies Coulson's face. Unmoving. But there's something... something is going on.

"See you back at the base for debriefing." His tone leaves no room for further questions. And then he hangs up.

"What was that?" Skye asks.

"When do you have to take the car back to the rental place?"

"This afternoon," she replies. "Seriously. What was _that_?"

"We're going to get breakfast," he says, as if it were freaking obvious. "Didn't you say there was a nice diner around here? Where is it?"

He takes her hand in his, and he lets her lead him down the street.

 

**8:02**

She pushes her bag between herself and the window.

"You never part with that. We could have left it in the other car."

"I don't really feel like a human being unless there's a laptop bag at my shoulder," Skye tells him.

They are waiting for their breakfasts to arrive.

He ordered black coffee and a bowl of fresh fruit.

She ordered pancakes.

The sun is already on the formica table and it's one of those places where there are coffee refills, a retro place but Skye did her homework, their food has great rep. Skye finds it a bit too surreal, too last-scene-of-a-movie type of place. But it's all good, because Coulson is sitting across her and looking at her like he cannot wait to get her somewhere private, and at the same like he could stay here, in this quiet minute with her, forever. It's a good look. It's been a long time since anyone has looked at Skye like that.

Their orders arrive and it takes Coulson a moment to tear his eyes from her to politely thank their waiter.

Skye doesn't really have any more propriety to spare to she takes a stab at the stack of pancakes without ceremony.

She can feel Coulson still watching her. She takes a sip of her coffee and decides to adress the very solemn expression he has on his face. She knows Coulson just as well as he knows her, there's no way she can't tell exactly what he's thinking.

"Look, Coulson. Honestly, right now? I'm not looking for any big, epic declaration here," she tells him.

The solem look doesn't go away. It sort of gets more intense. His eyes look darker for a moment.

"I've been trying to tell you all night," he admits.

Her eyes widen. He has some nerve.

"I've been trying to tell you _all week_."

He reaches over and touches his fingers against the side of her face.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Yes, he's a complete fool, and she is going to explore all the reasons why later (but hopefully not much later and hopefully after she takes a shower) but right now Skye really wants to prioritize her pancakes for a moment. It's only fair. She takes his hand in hers, pressing her palm to the fingers covering her cheek.

"Don't worry about it," she says, pulling his hand away gently and placing it on the table, her fingertips tracing the bones of his wrist for a second. "Eat your breakfast."

He does. Slowly, and his eyes never leave Skye, which is a bit unfair.

"You know," she comments, once she slows down with her food, "all in all, this whole stakeout business has been great."

He startles himself by chuckling. "You are a very strange person."

"I'm not joking."

He stands up from his seat and walks to the other side of the booth, gesturing for Skye to make room. She does, on reflex, a bit stunned.

He puts his arm over the back of her seat, very smoothly.

Skye lifts one eyebrow at him before going back to attacking her pancakes. She pretends that the warmth of his body pressed against her shoulder is not distracting her. She tries looking outside the window for a moment. It is a nice morning.

"I've talked to Simmons," Coulson says after a while.

"Mmm."

For a moment she can feel his fingertips stroking the back of her neck, tangled in her hair, then he withdraws his hand, looking suddenly very serious. A different kind of serious from before. Worried.

"I told her about being tired even when I think I've slept. About not knowing if I've slept or not. We've scheduled a full check-up for tomorrow."

Skye looks at him just as seriously.

She turns in her side of the booth, her back to the window, and reaches out to his hand on the table, sliding her fingers along his knuckle.

"You're okay," she says. "Or you _will be_. Trust me."

He nods and she lets go off his hand, giving him some space. He's allowed to worry.

He does have one arm slung around her shoulders now so Skye takes advantage of that to lean in, immediately feeling the warm body she still remembers from a few hours ago. This is different. This is daylight, and they are not confined to the small space and restrictions of the car. People around them are just going about their days and the way Coulson is caressing the back of Skye's shoulder with his thumb right now one might think this is something normal for them as well.

Skye wonders if this is going to become normal for them someday.

She doesn't mind the perspective.

"This is part of the experience?" she teases him.

"Something like that," Coulson says, tightening the grip on her shoulder and leaning into her to kiss her in a way that's definitely not family restaurant appropiate.

Skye doesn't mind; she rests one hand across his chest, trying to keep all that warmth, selfishly but she doesn't mind being selfish right now. She can taste the traces of apple, raspberry and banana in his mouth.

When she pulls away she notices the morning sunlight is already on them. The light doesn't do much of a favor to the lines on Coulson's face or the dark under his eyes, specially after who knows how many sleepless nights, but his eyes are a pretty color like this.

She kisses him, closed-mouthed and brief.

"I was right," she says, wrapping her fingers around the hand on her shoulder, squeezing.

"About what?" Coulson asks.

Skye feels tempted to say _everything_. But he knows that. This part he might not know:

"I told you you'd come up with something spectacular."


End file.
